Being with Being

Mackenzie Hawkins
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Philosophy, contemplative practice, and the physics of nature's flow — for finding your own way. For those who don't need the added pressure of another's way, but are curious about ways of understanding, perceiving, and living that mesh with each other — and that only you can make your own. Each episode is a complete live recording — typically around two hours — opening with a 15-30 minute inquiry into the session's theme, moving into an hour-long guided practice, and closing with comments and discussion. These explorations grew from years of my own searching — trying to fit into practices that promised relief, never quite finding home in any tradition, and stumbling upon a rational basis for getting traction on ways I don't have to try. As your fellow explorer, I'm Mackenzie Hawkins — researcher in philosophy of physics, contemplative practitioner, and co-author of several books with physicist and Tai Chi Master Dr. Wonchull Park. Drawing from his nowflow philosophy, these series-based explorations use philosophy and physics as ways of understanding and perceiving what's here already. Not ways to follow, but ways that might help you find your own — for anyone looking to explore beyond the pressures we put on ourselves.

  1. 1d ago

    Setting Time Aside: Changing Spatial Relations - No Time, No Problem?

    Today we’re actually going to start really slow. You might feel like this is the preliminary warm-up, and you can skip ahead if you’re super eager to get to the juiciness of time—because we’re actually not going to meditate or talk about time today. And the reason for that is that going into this exploration, I do think it is helpful to have some tools. And one of them is that as the perception of time more recedes, alongside that, our perception of space—changing spatial relations—is going to come out more. And the more we have a sense of changing spatial relations—well, I don’t want to give away the punchline. That might cover more than we actually expect. So today we’re going to be in the realm of some very mundane aspects of experience. Sorry, sorry about that. Space. And the physics we’ll bring in is nothing more and nothing less than Galilean relativity. Really wonder what that’s going to get us. But maybe further down the line in this series, you can circle back and come back to this session here, and see how we really are laying the groundwork. For perception, for understanding. Maybe a little less time-dependent, that we could feel into it, know it for ourselves. No Time, No Problem? An Honest Look at “Timelessness” in Physics and Living What if there’s no time—and that’s not a problem for physics? What if there’s no time—could that be a solution for our suffering? Rather than offering answers of what to think, this series offers ways of thinking that can move us past the pressures we put on ourselves: from the “should” of trying to “be present” to the “should” of being 4D spacetime worms to be compatible with relativity! Somewhere between those “shoulds,” I got stuck until physicist and Tai Chi Master Wonchull Park showed me how to think about nature simply, livably. Each session includes an hour-long meditation practice, where we get to try on different conceptions and perceptions of time to discover how equivalently valid options that physics provides can impact our levels of illusion and freedom. We’ll be reading together from a few sources—such as Wonchull Park’s Essential Reality & Time, Carlo Rovelli’s The Order of Time, Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, Dogen’s Shobogenzo Uji—to deeply question the role(s) of time in our lives. Looking forward to our discoveries. Thank you for Being with Being. beingwithbeing.org

  2. Jul 10

    The Great Together Interdependent Arising Party - Simply Settle Series

    Typically, there are those things on one list of what is nice and pleasant and spiritual or “good meditation.” And then there’s the other list. And there’s a feeling that what we need is to take what’s over here and change it to what’s over there on the better list. When it doesn’t work, we can get caught in a layer deeper of distress. That hurts. We’re taking some aspect of ourselves, some aspect of our experience, and saying, “Go away. You’re not allowed into the altogether party.” And I’m actually not even gonna look into my own experience and see the altogether party while you’re around. I’ll wait until you go away first or fix yourself first, and then I’ll look, because then I feel like I’ll find something good and together and nice. As Patrul Rinpoche says, “This is not the genuine view; it is favouring the good and rejecting the bad.” But what if, underneath it all, instead of that kind of existential, fundamental striving, there can be more of this trust that everything, every arising, shares the same nature? The great party. The great together interdependent arising party. And when we let ourselves settle directly into the very nature of whatever is arising, it doesn’t change it. It was all already always that way. And yet our experience of it can shift. It’s the non-shift shift. Simply Settle Series: A Practice That’s Not a Doing Two words from Patrul Rinpoche’s Self-Liberating Meditation — simply settle — so resonated for me. Not from the perspective of a Dzogchen practitioner — I’m not one. More like hearing a piece of music where I couldn’t begin to know the mind of the composer, but I can share what it evokes in me. What it evokes comes from over ten years of Taoist practice with Master Wonchull Park, who is also a physicist. He always starts with what is immediate, tangible, and in a way universal. And I needed that. I had such a tendency to over-try, to over-control, to really just torture myself with pretty much any practice. One of the practices that first opened up for me was something so basic — laying down to the ground. It gives me a starting place where I can know that way of nature is there. As much weight as I give the ground, the ground is going to hold me up. I don’t have to search for it, make it, go someplace else for it. I just get out of my own way and simply settle into the support that’s there. As Master Park says, it’s already laid down reality. So this series takes that tangible metaphor as its starting place and asks — what else is a way of nature we can simply “lay down” to? What else could we simply settle into without having to create it, cultivate it, or alter it in any way, as Patrul Rinpoche says? From laying our physical body upon the earth to simply settling into the flow of nature, we can come to know a direction in practice that’s not toward what should be but is simply is-ward. A practice that’s not a doing. And then wondering what it would be like to apply that to both thinking and non-thinking, to the nature of mind itself, to whatever is arising in our experience. Thank you for Being with Being. beingwithbeing.org

  3. Jul 3

    Not Toward, but Is-ward in Meditation Practice - Simply Settle Series

    Patrul Rinpoche nails us with his list of the many flavors of doing in meditation — drawing the mind outward, inward, spacing out, chasing thoughts, blocking their arising, anticipating them like a cat anticipating a mouse, squeezing and staring intensely with concentration. So what direction is simply settling? It’s not a settling outward. Not a settling inward. Not a settling toward something over something else. If it has any direction, it’s towards what is. I’m going to make up a word on the spot and call it is-ward. It has every direction and no direction. And so this series has been approaching this from the bottom-up — tangible experiences of the is-ward direction that can be a way of relating even to thoughts, even to mind. As Patrul Rinpoche says: “Simply settle directly in thought whenever there is thinking and in non-thought whenever there is no thinking, and that is it.” I do not find this easy. I don’t find living easy. I don’t find having a mind easy. But I find that this helps it be easier. Simply Settle Series: A Practice That’s Not a Doing Two words from Patrul Rinpoche’s Self-Liberating Meditation — simply settle — so resonated for me. Not from the perspective of a Dzogchen practitioner — I’m not one. More like hearing a piece of music where I couldn’t begin to know the mind of the composer, but I can share what it evokes in me. What it evokes comes from over ten years of Taoist practice with Master Wonchull Park, who is also a physicist. He always starts with what is immediate, tangible, and in a way universal. And I needed that. I had such a tendency to over-try, to over-control, to really just torture myself with pretty much any practice. One of the practices that first opened up for me was something so basic — laying down to the ground. It gives me a starting place where I can know that way of nature is there. As much weight as I give the ground, the ground is going to hold me up. I don’t have to search for it, make it, go someplace else for it. I just get out of my own way and simply settle into the support that’s there. As Master Park says, it’s already laid down reality. So this series takes that tangible metaphor as its starting place and asks — what else is a way of nature we can simply “lay down” to? What else could we simply settle into without having to create it, cultivate it, or alter it in any way, as Patrul Rinpoche says? From laying our physical body upon the earth to simply settling into the flow of nature, we can come to know a direction in practice that’s not toward what should be but is simply is-ward. A practice that’s not a doing. And then wondering what it would be like to apply that to both thinking and non-thinking, to the nature of mind itself, to whatever is arising in our experience. Thank you for Being with Being. beingwithbeing.org

  4. Jun 26

    Still Laid Down Reality? The Altogetherness of Perception Itself - Simply Settle Series

    What’s so truly amazing as a sentient being, a human being, is that the flows that make up us, the flows that help give rise to our own unique experiences and feelings and perceptions, and even mental activity and mind — are flows that carry content. And yet are also at the same time are pure flow of nature, unfolding altogether in nature in this fine-free-yet-together way. So the bit of a leap that we embark on today is — what is it like to simply settle directly into perception? Whatever the content of perception, there’s that underlying togetherness as a flow of nature. And we get to settle directly into that underlying nature. It is not separate from the content. Even so, it is unconditional. No matter what the content, and no matter what we feel about the content, still a flow. What is it like to simply settle directly into the flow of perception? We start with sound — and wonder where would we go to simply settle directly into the receiving of sound? Patrul Rinpoche speaks of not seeking outside and not turning inward to look either. We can bathe in the flowing altogether experience of silence and space and sounds. Nothing to grasp outwardly or inwardly. Nothing to seek. Simply Settle Series: A Practice That’s Not a Doing Two words from Patrul Rinpoche’s Self-Liberating Meditation — simply settle — so resonated for me. Not from the perspective of a Dzogchen practitioner — I’m not one. More like hearing a piece of music where I couldn’t begin to know the mind of the composer, but I can share what it evokes in me. What it evokes comes from over ten years of Taoist practice with Master Wonchull Park, who is also a physicist. He always starts with what is immediate, tangible, and in a way universal. And I needed that. I had such a tendency to over-try, to over-control, to really just torture myself with pretty much any practice. One of the practices that first opened up for me was something so basic — laying down to the ground. It gives me a starting place where I can know that way of nature is there. As much weight as I give the ground, the ground is going to hold me up. I don’t have to search for it, make it, go someplace else for it. I just get out of my own way and simply settle into the support that’s there. As Master Park says, it’s already laid down reality. So this series takes that tangible metaphor as its starting place and asks — what else is a way of nature we can simply “lay down” to? What else could we simply settle into without having to create it, cultivate it, or alter it in any way, as Patrul Rinpoche says? From laying our physical body upon the earth to simply settling into the flow of nature, we can come to know a direction in practice that’s not toward what should be but is simply is-ward. A practice that’s not a doing. And then wondering what it would be like to apply that to both thinking and non-thinking, to the nature of mind itself, to whatever is arising in our experience. Thank you for Being with Being. beingwithbeing.org

  5. Jun 19

    Laying Down to Reality: Nature’s Flow - Simply Settle Series

    What’s it like to simply settle into that there is space? To simply settle into that there is the flow of change? The space and the flow of change don’t need our tweaking. They don’t need our adjusting. It’s just the way of nature. And we can simply settle into it. Gradually we let our perception of this sense of the flow of nature, our own inner feel of it, begin to become finer and finer. And then we see where all that may take us. What is it to abide in something that’s ever changing? What is it to simply settle into flow itself? Simply Settle Series: A Practice That’s Not a Doing Two words from Patrul Rinpoche’s Self-Liberating Meditation — simply settle — so resonated for me. Not from the perspective of a Dzogchen practitioner — I’m not one. More like hearing a piece of music where I couldn’t begin to know the mind of the composer, but I can share what it evokes in me. What it evokes comes from over ten years of Taoist practice with Master Wonchull Park, who is also a physicist. He always starts with what is immediate, tangible, and in a way universal. And I needed that. I had such a tendency to over-try, to over-control, to really just torture myself with pretty much any practice. One of the practices that first opened up for me was something so basic — laying down to the ground. It gives me a starting place where I can know that way of nature is there. As much weight as I give the ground, the ground is going to hold me up. I don’t have to search for it, make it, go someplace else for it. I just get out of my own way and simply settle into the support that’s there. As Master Park says, it’s already laid down reality. So this series takes that tangible metaphor as its starting place and asks — what else is a way of nature we can simply “lay down” to? What else could we simply settle into without having to create it, cultivate it, or alter it in any way, as Patrul Rinpoche says? From laying our physical body upon the earth to simply settling into the flow of nature, we can come to know a direction in practice that’s not toward what should be but is simply is-ward. A practice that’s not a doing. And then wondering what it would be like to apply that to both thinking and non-thinking, to the nature of mind itself, to whatever is arising in our experience. Thank you for Being with Being. beingwithbeing.org

  6. Jun 12

    Laying Down to Reality: Nature’s Togetherness - Simply Settle Series

    Once we get the feel of laying down to the ground, “the ground” can become many things. It doesn’t have to just stay as the most obvious thing, the ground. Our torso acts like the ground upon which our shoulders rest. Whatever layer of our spine we pick, one vertebra lays down upon the one beneath. We could put that sense of ground throughout our body. And as we begin to feel the sense of ground as more all-pervasive — this resting upon this, this interacting and inter-being with this — we might begin to feel it as a deep metaphor. There’s the ground of the Tao. There’s the ground of the way of nature. In a way, we practice less interfering, less blocking out that way of nature. We’re laying down to that reality, letting that reality more fully support us. Not because we’re making it or cultivating it, but because it’s there, and when we appreciate it and feel it, it becomes more of our experience. Simply Settle Series: A Practice That’s Not a Doing Two words from Patrul Rinpoche’s Self-Liberating Meditation — simply settle — so resonated for me. Not from the perspective of a Dzogchen practitioner — I’m not one. More like hearing a piece of music where I couldn’t begin to know the mind of the composer, but I can share what it evokes in me. What it evokes comes from over ten years of Taoist practice with Master Wonchull Park, who is also a physicist. He always starts with what is immediate, tangible, and in a way universal. And I needed that. I had such a tendency to over-try, to over-control, to really just torture myself with pretty much any practice. One of the practices that first opened up for me was something so basic — laying down to the ground. It gives me a starting place where I can know that way of nature is there. As much weight as I give the ground, the ground is going to hold me up. I don’t have to search for it, make it, go someplace else for it. I just get out of my own way and simply settle into the support that’s there. As Master Park says, it’s already laid down reality. So this series takes that tangible metaphor as its starting place and asks — what else is a way of nature we can simply “lay down” to? What else could we simply settle into without having to create it, cultivate it, or alter it in any way, as Patrul Rinpoche says? From laying our physical body upon the earth to simply settling into the flow of nature, we can come to know a direction in practice that’s not toward what should be but is simply is-ward. A practice that’s not a doing. And then wondering what it would be like to apply that to both thinking and non-thinking, to the nature of mind itself, to whatever is arising in our experience. Thank you for Being with Being. beingwithbeing.org

  7. Jun 5

    A Tangible Metaphor: Lay Down to the Ground - Simply Settle Series

    In this opening session we explore what these two words, “simply settle,” can mean at the most tangible level — hands simply settling into the support of a lap, body simply settling into the support of the earth. And what it’s like when we notice the absurdity of our own language around it. How do you allow your hands to be heavy? They have the weight that they have. Nothing to do. Nothing even to allow. And yet there’s this uncontrived immediacy when we feel it — hands and lap together, seat and ground together, just how they are naturally, already, and always. Mutual flow of lay down and support going on without anything needed from us. As Master Park says, it’s already laid down reality. All of my prompts are not about a special doing, or cultivating, or altering. It’s just simply settle into what is the nature of your body and the ground in this moment. And that is it. It’s just two words. And perhaps instead of coming up with an answer to what they mean, being with the felt and experiential response you can feel into — simply settle. Simply Settle Series: A Practice That’s Not a Doing Two words from Patrul Rinpoche’s Self-Liberating Meditation — simply settle — so resonated for me. Not from the perspective of a Dzogchen practitioner — I’m not one. More like hearing a piece of music where I couldn’t begin to know the mind of the composer, but I can share what it evokes in me. What it evokes comes from over ten years of Taoist practice with Master Wonchull Park, who is also a physicist. He always starts with what is immediate, tangible, and in a way universal. And I needed that. I had such a tendency to over-try, to over-control, to really just torture myself with pretty much any practice. One of the practices that first opened up for me was something so basic — laying down to the ground. It gives me a starting place where I can know that way of nature is there. As much weight as I give the ground, the ground is going to hold me up. I don’t have to search for it, make it, go someplace else for it. I just get out of my own way and simply settle into the support that’s there. As Master Park says, it’s already laid down reality. So this series takes that tangible metaphor as its starting place and asks — what else is a way of nature we can simply “lay down” to? What else could we simply settle into without having to create it, cultivate it, or alter it in any way, as Patrul Rinpoche says? From laying our physical body upon the earth to simply settling into the flow of nature, we can come to know a direction in practice that’s not toward what should be but is simply is-ward. A practice that’s not a doing. And then wondering what it would be like to apply that to both thinking and non-thinking, to the nature of mind itself, to whatever is arising in our experience. Thank you for Being with Being. beingwithbeing.org

  8. May 29

    What if the Mystery Is Already Untouched? Beyond Just Stuff

    I'm feeling kind of feisty today. Take it all with a grain of salt. But one thing I do feel feisty about is this idea that mystery -- and a realm of unknowing -- is in danger. That it's fragile. That if we know too much, or science says something too definitively, this deeper mystery of existence and being is somehow under threat. Yeah, I think that it's not. And I also can relate to why it can really feel under threat. Just even from my own experience. I can remember reading Hyperspace in sixth grade -- I don't even remember what it was about, but I could just feel myself coming alive again as I read those pages. Same for "quantum weirdness," and for "we are stardust." For some of us it gives us this connection to a more expansive, awe-some -- awesome in the old sense, that it's awe-some -- way that we might relate to ourselves and the world. But what's kind of interesting about those stories is that none of that is necessarily immediate in our experience. And we live in an age where many of us are influenced by what physics says is so -- that we kind of need that, we're relying on that in some way, to have permission to feel mystery. And then kind of reach over and grab onto physics and say, this justifies my experience. And maybe instead of these dances around mystery and permission and authority -- there can be a real inside-out sense of: yeah, I've got maps, I have choices about how I wield my maps. The mystery is ours too. To be. And we get to use whatever we find helpful... Beyond Just Stuff Series: Maps, Mystery & Nature's FlowWhat is it about quantum that lets us feel like physics gives us permission to view stuff as not just plain old mechanical stuff? One of the limitations that comes up in a body-centered practice is that we can have associations with the body as, you know, "it's just the body" -- and that blocks our fuller feeling of the magic of being a human being. As physicist and tai chi master Wonchull Park says, the map is not the terrain -- but we can use our maps to open more to the terrain as it actually is. We move from the playfully imaginative through to some genuinely strange territory in physics, and arrive somewhere more ordinary and more immediate. But there's a question underneath it all that's worth sitting with: what is it that's actually shifting when we try on a new story about what we're made of? Is it the physics picture? Or is it a letting go of what we usually tell ourselves? Or some of both? These six sessions explore that question from the inside out -- using maps, yes, and also learning to see through them, fall through them, and arrive at something that doesn't need a story to justify it. The mystery, it turns out, was never in danger. It's always untouched. In these six explorations, each with an hour-long guided body-centered practice at its heart, we'll see what it might be like to peel back some of that "oh, I know my physical body, it's just stuff" -- to open to a richness that's already there, beneath what we think we know. No stamp of approval needed from any authority. Permission inherently granted. Thank you for Being with Being. beingwithbeing.org

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About

Philosophy, contemplative practice, and the physics of nature's flow — for finding your own way. For those who don't need the added pressure of another's way, but are curious about ways of understanding, perceiving, and living that mesh with each other — and that only you can make your own. Each episode is a complete live recording — typically around two hours — opening with a 15-30 minute inquiry into the session's theme, moving into an hour-long guided practice, and closing with comments and discussion. These explorations grew from years of my own searching — trying to fit into practices that promised relief, never quite finding home in any tradition, and stumbling upon a rational basis for getting traction on ways I don't have to try. As your fellow explorer, I'm Mackenzie Hawkins — researcher in philosophy of physics, contemplative practitioner, and co-author of several books with physicist and Tai Chi Master Dr. Wonchull Park. Drawing from his nowflow philosophy, these series-based explorations use philosophy and physics as ways of understanding and perceiving what's here already. Not ways to follow, but ways that might help you find your own — for anyone looking to explore beyond the pressures we put on ourselves.

Information

  • Creator
    Mackenzie Hawkins
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    39
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Being with Being
  • Show Website
    Being with Being