Over the decades, Buddhist practice, with its own set of traditions, ethics and beliefs, has been transformed in the West to “mindfulness”, a therapeutic exercise that wields the power and authority o

After the outbreak of violence and mass displacement of the Rohingya in western Myanmar in 2017, I travelled to the country, speaking to activists, Buddhist monks and Muslim leaders in Yangon and Mand

Today’s Polarities interview is with Jesse Harvey, a harm-reduction advocate from Portland, Maine. Harvey founded the Church of Safe Injection in the face of the alarming rise in number of opiate-rela

David Frye is the author of the book Walls: A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick. In our interview, we talk about the ancient but universal view of walls as something that made people soft, ab

I was honoured to speak with Douglas Massey, Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Massey’s specialty is the U.S.-Mexico border, and back in 1982 he started the Mexican Mi

The Ancient Greek playwright Sophocles wrote a short tragedy about the daughter of Oedipus, who battled with the state over the right to bury her brother who had fallen in war. Episode 2 of Polarities

In the inaugural episode of Polarities, we look at that great foundational myth that tries to explain the origin of languages, borders, displacement, and the concept of human division itself: the Towe