East-West Psychology

CIIS students and alumni reflect on the moments that changed everything — inside and outside the classroom.

Tantra and Yoga are practices rooted in Indic spiritual traditions that share long, intertwined and complex histories. Often, we encounter tantra and yoga as forms of exercise, self-care, sex, or as pathways to personal wellness. However, these powerful, multifaceted practices are much more than that.

In this episode, Dr. Anna Corwin, Chair of the CIIS Women’s Spirituality Program facilitates an illuminating conversation between Dr. Sundari Johansen, Assistant Professor of Women’s Spirituality, and Anjali Rao, yoga practitioner-educator and author of Yoga as Embodied Resistance.

This episode was recorded during an in-person and live streamed event at California Institute of Integral Studies on October 16th, 2025. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

What if the questions that draw us to learning could also reshape who we become? Across disciplines and life paths, curiosity emerges as sacred work, an opening into connection, healing, and transformation.

Life is perpetually, endlessly filled with change: new jobs and new loves, unfamiliar places and faces. And entwined in that change is loss: loss of what was or is, or what could have been. Amid this shifting landscape, author Ann Tashi Slater has found power in embracing impermanence through the Tibetan Buddhist belief in the intermediate state of bardo.

In this episode, Ann is joined in an illuminating conversation with CIIS Professor in Transformative Inquiry Fernando Ona. Ann shares insights from her latest book, Traveling in Bardo, and examines bardo in relation to marriage, friendships, parents, children, work and creativity along with stories of her Tibetan ancestors and the Buddhist teachings on the fleeting nature of existence.

This episode was recorded during an live online event at California Institute of Integral Studies on September 18th, 2025. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Over 370 participants gathered at CIIS to honor Jung’s 150th birthday in a transformative exploration of psyche, purpose, and collective healing.

In Dr. John J. Prendergast’s decades of experience as a psychotherapist and spiritual teacher, the area of the body that’s most difficult for people to connect with—given our survival fear and trauma—is our physical and energetic ground. In his work, he finds this area in the lower belly and at the base of the spine remains largely unconscious and deeply defended by most individuals, while most spiritual traditions tend to avoid or undervalue the opening of the ground.

However, with the correct understanding and quality of attention, we can consciously open our multidimensional ground and, as a result, experience a felt-sense of inner safety and stability that supports the full flowering of inner peace, freedom, and loving awareness—a truly embodied spirituality.

In this episode, Dr. Prendergast is joined in a conversation with CIIS core faculty in the graduate department of East-West Psychology Dr. Sara Max Granovetter that dives deep into our personal, archetypal, and universal ground. Sharing insights from his years working in sensing and inquiry practices as well as his latest book, Your Deepest Ground, Dr. Prendergast explains how we can begin to see through the false ground of our early conditioning and limited identity.

This episode was recorded during an in-person and live streamed event at California Institute of Integral Studies on May 29th, 2025. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

A graduate’s journey integrating Eastern contemplative wisdom with Western depth psychological frameworks.

Join CIIS to celebrate Jung’s legacy and explore his psychology’s impact on growth, healing, and cultural change in challenging times.

The Ten Oxherding Pictures is an image series that visualizes the Buddhist training path to enlightenment. The image series has served as a spiritual teaching tool for centuries, guiding seekers through the steps of awakening. But how are these images relevant today?

In this episode, CIIS professors Dr. Debashish Banerji and Dr. Sara Granovetter have a conversation about posthumanism, the Oxherding series, the Jungian individuation process, and the disowned wild self. Together, they explore how the ox may represent a part of the psyche that is habitually pushed to the margins of consciousness. They also help us discover what the Oxherding Pictures teach us about relating to the wild other within ourselves and the work of befriending it for spiritual awakening.

This episode was recorded during an in-person and live streamed event at California Institute of Integral Studies on January 30th, 2025. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

At each CIIS Open House event, a community panel of faculty and alumni discusses what drew them to CIIS and their experiences at the University.

Koans are the record of provocative, and often paradoxical, exchanges between Zen masters and their students developed in medieval China. In her practice and writing, renowned Zen teacher Joan Sutherland reimagines the koan tradition with allegiance to its root spirit and to its profound potential for vivifying, subverting, and sanctifying our lives.

In this episode, Joan is joined by clinical psychologist Megan Rundel in a conversation exploring how practice with Zen koans makes us permeable to the joys and the anguish of this life—and to the primordial mystery we glimpse behind the veil of the everyday.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on July 27th, 2022. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Caste is one of the oldest systems of exclusion in the world. It negatively impacts 1.9 billion people worldwide, crippling their quality of life.

Brahmins, who created this system in Hindu scripture, are at the top of the caste system and have benefited from centuries of privilege, access, and power because of it. Dalits, who sit at the bottom of this hierarchy, are branded “untouchable” and sentenced to a violent system of caste apartheid with separate neighborhoods, places of worship, and schools.

Dalit American activist and author Thenmozhi Tenmori Soundararajan has been working to end caste oppression around the world for decades. In her work, she endeavors to help Dalit individuals and families heal through international solidarity with other oppressed people, working together to dismantle caste apartheid.

In this episode, author, meditation teacher, and law professor Rhonda Magee has a powerful conversation with Thenmozhi about the ongoing trauma of the caste system and Dalit people’s fight against oppression.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on February 16th, 2023. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

In her latest book, Casting Indra’s Net: Fostering Spiritual Kinship and Community, activist, counselor, and Buddhist teacher Dr. Pamela Ayo Yetunde shares ways of creating kinship and community through the metaphor of Indra’s Net—a universal net in which all beings reflect each other like jewels.

In this episode, Ayo is joined by somatic and transpersonal psychotherapist Deanna Jimenez for a heartfelt conversation that is both a call and a primer for community-oriented models of well-being in our age of polarization and turmoil.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on March 3rd, 2023. We had some technical issues during this event that have resulted in audio quality that is lower than our usual standard, but we felt it was important to share this conversation regardless. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Popular belief assumes that mixedness gives you the ability to feel at home in more than one culture, but the flipside reveals you can feel just as alienated in those spaces.

Born to a white American and a South Asian immigrant, scholar and essayist Samira Mehta grew up feeling more comfortable with her mother’s family than with her father’s—her white family never carried on conversations in languages that she couldn’t understand or blamed her for finding the food too spicy. But in adulthood, she realized that some of her Indian family’s assumptions about the world had become an indelible part of her—and that her well-intentioned parents had not known how to prepare her for a world that would see her as a person of color.

In this episode Samira is joined by the Director of the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University A-lan Holt for a conversation about Samira’s life and recent book The Racism of People Who Love You that tackles questions around authenticity and belonging, conscious and unconscious cultural inheritance, appropriate mentorship, and the racism of people who love you.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on April 20th, 2023. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

How do we grieve our losses? How can we care for our spirits? Immigrant daughter, novice chaplain, bereaved friend, and author Chenxing Han explores these searing questions in her latest book One Long Listening. One of American Buddhism’s most vital new voices, Chenxing illuminates and reexamines Buddhism with new perspectives and invites us to dive into unknowingness.

In this episode, Chenxing is joined by Associate Professor and CIIS core faculty of Asian Contemplative and Transcultural Studies Jun Wang for a transformative conversation as they explore Chenxing’s journey through the wilds of grief and laughter, pain and impermanence. Drawing upon her Buddhist practice, experiences with a dying friend, bedside chaplaincy visits, and memories of a migratory childhood, Chenxing reconnects us to both the heartache and inexplicable brightness of being human.

This episode was recorded during an in-person and live streamed event at California Institute of Integral Studies on June 8th, 2023. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

The I Ching, also known as The Book of Changes, is a 3000-year-old Chinese divination text. Many use the I Ching as a tool for life guidance, spiritual practice, and ancestral connection. It is a revelation of metaphysical philosophy, epistemology, and ethics, as well as a book of occult secrets.

In this episode, celebrated occultist and scholar Benebell Wen is joined by certified professional tarot reader, creator, and author T. Susan Chang for an illuminating conversation on Benebell’s historic new translation and annotations of the I Ching which brings the power and mysticism of The Book of Changes to our contemporary world.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on February 15th, 2024. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Christopher Marmolejo is a Brown, queer, and trans writer, diviner, and educator who uses divination to promote a literacy of liberation. In their latest book, Red Tarot, each card’s interpretation is further bolstered by the teachings of Toni Morrison, bell hooks, Paulo Freire, José Esteban Muñoz, and others in an offering that integrates intersectional wisdom with the author’s divination practice—revealing tarot as an essential language for liberation.

In this episode, Christopher is joined by arts-based, psychedelic-assisted ancestral psychotherapist Camara Meri Rajabari for a conversation that moves beyond self-help and the Hellenistic frame of tarot to reclaim it for liberation, self-determination, and collective healing.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on March 23, 2024. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Sasha Bainer, an East-West Psychology student, provides us with insights into their firsthand experience of Auroville.

CIIS’ East-West Psychology and Transformative Inquiry departments put together a week-long period of celebration of conferences, music, theater, film and food.

Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu explores how to live with mindfulness, compassion, and responsibility. He is joined in conversation by CIIS professor Helge Osterhold.

This episode was recorded during an event on March 15, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

Leah Vernon is a style blogger, plus-size Muslim model, public speaker, and activist. In her book, Unashamed: Musings of a Fat, Black Muslim, she takes to task the myth of the perfect Muslim woman.

In this episode, poet and social justice activist Rabi'a Keeble talks with Leah Vernon about her love-hate relationship with her hijab and her faith, race, weight, mental illness, domestic violence, sexuality, the millennial world of dating, and the process of finding her voice.

This episode contains explicit language. It was recorded during an event in 2020 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

Considered one of the leaders of a current generation of Buddhist teachers, Lama Rod Owens is a Buddhist minister, author, activist, and an authorized Lama—or Buddhist teacher—in the Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism. Through his writings, teachings, and travels Lama Rod invites everyone into his life intersections as a Black, queer male who was born and raised in the South, and heavily influenced by the church and its community.

In this episode, Lama Rod is joined by Executive Director of the Counter Narrative Project, Charles Stephens, for a conversation about how unmetabolized anger—and the grief, hurt, and transhistorical trauma beneath it—needs to be explored, respected, and fully embodied to heal from heartbreak and begin to walk the path of liberation.

This episode contains explicit language. It was recorded during a live online event on January 14, 2021. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

To create a world free from oppression, we have to come face to face with the beliefs, stories, and actions that maintain these systems within ourselves. In Indigenous cultures throughout the world, it's understood that true transformation starts in the body, with a change of heart. But how can we create a new story of transformation and liberation in the world if we haven't learned to heal our own stories?

In this episode, author and shamanic healer Langston Kahn is joined by energy worker and spiritual practitioner Maryam Hasnaa for a deep conversation exploring how we can address the root of past trauma and heartbreak to reclaim our personal and collective power.

This episode contains explicit language. It was recorded during a live online event on January 26, 2021. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

How can we be more mindful when our world seems broken beyond repair? Tim Desmond—esteemed Buddhist scholar and lecturer on Psychology at Yale Medical School—has fresh, engaging answers to this important question.

Integrative Health Studies expert Megan Lipsett joins Tim for a conversation about his approach to mindfulness practices designed for surviving the sometimes-miserable world we currently live in.

This episode contains explicit language and was recorded during an event on October 17, 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California. A transcript is available below.

Shot at by police as an 11-year-old child for playing baseball in the wrong spot, as an adult Larry Ward continued to experience racialized trauma when his home was firebombed by racists. At Plum Village Monastery in France, he found a way to heal with his teacher, Vietnamese peace activist and Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh.

Now a Zen Buddhist teacher and author, Dr. Ward's work examines the causes and conditions that have led us to our current state, and he finds—hidden in the crisis—a profound opportunity to reinvent what it means to be a human being. This is an invitation to transform America’s racial karma.

In this episode, Women's Spirituality Professor Alka Arora talks with Dr. Ward as he shares what he has learned through his own life and work, and invites us to transform our society and heal our racial karma.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on October 6, 2020. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

For over 50 years CIIS has been a leader in transformative integral education. Integral studies, in the founding of CIIS, encapsulated a contemporary academic approach to a spiritual mission.

In this episode, Haridas Chaudhuri Professor and Chair/Professor of East-West Psychology Debashish Banerji and President Emeritus and Professor Emeritus in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness Robert McDermott have an illuminating discussion on the multitude of meanings of integral, as seen and applied to the spiritual mission in the history and future of CIIS.

This episode was recorded during an in-person and live streamed event at California Institute of Integral Studies on September 28th, 2022. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Spiritual teacher and international bestselling author Deepak Chopra believes there is an inner path to prosperity and wealth that—once charted and explored—offers access to the great riches of the universe and life’s unbounded possibilities. In his latest book Abundance: The Inner Path to Wealth, Deepak illuminates this road to success and wholeness, sharing a guide to a life of true power, prosperity, and plenty.

In this episode, Integrative Health Studies Professor Meg Jordan joins Deepak for a conversation exploring how to tap into a deeper sense of awareness to become an agent of change in your own life.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on March 17th, 2022. Access the transcript below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

The powerful new volume was edited by East-West Psychology Professor, Debashish Banerji and Professor Emeritus, Robert McDermott.

Through his yoga teaching and writing, Jacoby Ballard explores the intersections of yoga, capitalism, cultural appropriation, and sexual violence. He offers a queer-centered, fully embodied, and equity-rooted practice with meditations and sequences for processing and healing from trauma both individually and in community.

In this episode, queer, transgender, autistic author and educator Nick Walker talks with Jacoby about his latest book, A Queer Dharma and the possibilities for finding an unapologetically queer path towards true healing and transformation.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on November 18th, 2021. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

“Quit being a drop. Make yourself an ocean.” Rumi’s inspiring and deceptively simple poems have been called ecstatic, mystical, and devotional. For writer and activist Melody Moezzi, they became her lifeline.

Melody’s latest book, The Rumi Prescription, follows her path of discovery as she translates Rumi’s works for herself, gaining wisdom and insight in the face of a creative and spiritual roadblock.

In this episode, Professor and Co-Chair of CIIS’ Expressive Arts Therapy program Shoshana Simons talks with Melody about her life and how the wisdom she found exploring Rumi can help us make sense of our modern lives.

This episode contains explicit language. It was recorded during a live online event on May 20, 2020. You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

In this episode, world-renowned meditation teacher and New York Times bestselling author Sharon Salzberg is joined by AI scientist and contemplative teacher Nikki Mirghafori in a conversation on cultivating resilience, compassion, and clarity during difficult times.

This episode was recorded during an event on February 8, 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

After observing modern shamanic trainings with a growing concern, clinical psychologist and scholar Anotonio Ramirez began exploring more traditional forms of shamanism by interviewing elder shamans in Latin America.

In this talk, recorded at CIIS on May 21, 2019, Antonio shares his ideas about the dangers of shamanism as it is practiced today in urban areas, how these practices are affecting native shamanism, and suggests ways to avoid falling prey of unethical practitioners.

With an immensely rich and complex history spanning several millennia, India offers an overwhelming palette of visual options. Indian classical art is filled with hidden symbolism. When decoded, we find these symbols still hold powerful meanings today and help us to better understand the human experience.

In this episode, dancer, painter, and actor Mesma Belsaré describes the geometric design principles behind some of the classical images in Indian art and their hidden meanings.

This episode was recorded during an event on January 30, 2020 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

Banerji and Craig Chalquist discuss his new book, Meditations on the Isa Upanishads: Tracing the Philosophical Vision of Sri Aurobindo

Shaman Durek, a sixth-generation shaman, is the inheritor of a rich legacy of ancient wisdom. He applies this deep-rooted knowledge in a thoroughly modern context—advising everyone from celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow, Nina Dobrev, and royals around the world, to international corporate executives.

In this episode, Kelly Ryan, the founder of Anchor Meditation, has a conversation with Shaman Durek about his life and works. They discuss the shamanic keys outlined in his book Spirit Hacking, and share lessons about how these keys can help you to tap into your own personal power—banishing fear and darkness from your life in favor of light, positivity, and strength.

This episode was recorded during an event on December 19, 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

East-West Psychology student, Katherine Hrudka, shares her experience studying abroad in Auroville.

Author and psychoanalyst Pilar Jennings is joined by CIIS Professor Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo for a conversation about the intersection of Buddhism and psychology.

This episode was recorded during an event on August 2, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, author and activist Sobonfu Somé explores the importance of grieving and ritual in Burkina Faso, West Africa and how that tradition can be applied to our lives today. Her work has helped move African spiritual practices from the realm of anthropology to a place alongside the world's greatest spiritual traditions.

This episode was recorded during an event on February 26, 2016 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

East-West Psychology conference explores the ideas and forces surrounding the founding of CIIS.

In this episode, author and Buddhist scholar Reggie Ray discusses Tibetan Buddhism's approach to understanding and resolving trauma, sharing that trauma can be an opportunity for spiritual growth.

This episode was recorded during an event on February 26, 2016 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, CIIS professor Craig Chalquist explores how myths jump out of myth books and into our lives, inhabiting current events, our language, politics, and more.

This episode was recorded during an event on March 30, 2016 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

Author, teacher, and ecophilosopher Joanna Macy is known the world over for her workshops for social and environmental activists. She's joined in conversation by ecophilosophy teacher Renée G. Soule to discuss her life and work.

This episode was recorded during an event on April 8, 2016 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

Zen priest, author, and pioneer in the field of end-of-life care Roshi Joan Halifax is joined in conversation by Brenda Salgado about death and dying, Buddhism, and social activism.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on January 11, 2017.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Indigenous scholar and activist Melissa Nelson and Zen teacher Wendy Johnson discuss ecological knowledge and how to listen to the land.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on February 2, 2017.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Spiritual teacher and author Adyashanti discusses his belief that there are two spiritual instincts that reside deep within everyone.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on March 15, 2017.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Spiritual teacher and Vedic scholar Acharya Shunya is joined in conversation by CIIS Professor Debashish Banerji to discuss health and consciousness through Ayurveda lifestyle principles.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on March 29, 2017.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

In this conversation with Steven Tierney, Professor of Community Mental Health at CIIS, Pulitzer Prize finalist Robert Wright shares his journey exploring psychology, philosophy, and meditation to show how Buddhism holds the key to moral clarity and enduring happiness.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on October 19, 2017.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Stanford Professor and author Leah Weiss is joined in conversation by CIIS Dean of Alumni Richard Buggs to explore practical, evidence-based strategies for using ancient wisdom traditions to improve your work.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on September 5, 2018.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

How Intense Emotion Can Fuel Transformation

International Students and Stories of Courage, Severance, and Transition

Dr. Debashish Banerji Cited for His Sri Aurobindo Scholarship

Five CIIS Authors Contribute to the New Issue of the International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Haridas Chaudhuri Endowed Chair for Indian Philosophies and Culture and Doshi Professor of Asian Art at CIIS

East-West Psychology Ph.D. alumna Lorell Frysh published the novel, "Jewels in the Nets of Gods"

East-West Psychology Ph.D. alumna initiated a Dreamscape Exploration Group where participants delve deep into the unconscious and uncover the hidden messages of dreams

Implementation of the largest collaborative program focusing on psychedelic studies

The American Psychological Association Honors CIIS' Chair of Integral and Transpersonal Psychology

Holistic psychology, to us, is not only spiritual but also scientific. 

Cynthia Brix and Will Keepin received Honorary Doctorates from CIIS at Commencement in May

CIIS is leading cross-cultural collaboration around counseling psychology in China.

The Journal of Holistic Psychology and CIIS seeks to further enrich and extend integral-holistic perspectives in psychology through theme-based volumes.

The yogic teachings on Shakti are particularly relevant to this contemporary moment in human history

Experts from multiple backgrounds in the Symposium explored solutions to the rising tide of violence facing our country.

A medicine melody travels through consciousness and can transform everyday occurrences into a visionary dimension