Ideology & Wisdom

Ken McLeod examines the subtle ways ideology creeps into spiritual practice and obscures direct experience. Through stories, meditations, and lively exchanges with students, he explores how wisdom arises—not from fixed views—but from resting in experience and responding with awareness and compassion. The result is a penetrating look at what it means to live and practice with integrity in a complex world.

1. Shooting Arrows in the Dark: From Experience to Ideology

Ken begins by reflecting on the uncertainty of teaching: “It’s like shooting arrows in the dark.” He introduces the theme of ideology versus wisdom with a Sufi story that exposes the consequences of mistaking tools and traditions for truth.
Topics covered include: resting in sensory awareness, the meditative question “What experiences all this?”, and the implications of spiritual knowledge being held by a few.
2. What Are You Searching For? Meditation as Inquiry

Ken offers a somatic approach to meditation: “Ask the question, and open to whatever experience arises.” Using this inquiry—What am I looking for?—he leads a practice of resting in the felt sense of not-knowing, highlighting how “freedom is an experience of a particular kind of peace.”
Topics covered include: Thich Nhat Hanh’s influence, the self as narrative, why “doing nothing” is a high-level skill, and the gate of non-aspiration.
3. What Are the Tools For? Remembering the Point of Practice

Ken fields a wide range of student questions—from practice and pity to demons and daily life—with warmth, irreverence, and a sharp eye for confusion. “Understand the instruments,” he says, “but don’t study the instruments purely for the sake of studying the instruments.”
Topics covered include: the five skandhas as a map, why Abhidharma may be a waste of time, the energy dynamics of group practice, and the difference between honoring a teacher and worshipping them.
4. The Slippery Slope from Wisdom to Ideology

Ken leads a meditation that reveals how we can rest with even the most difficult experiences. “How can I experience this and be at peace at the same time?” he asks. From this inquiry, he explores how wisdom is lost—first becoming memory, then idea, belief, and finally ideology.
Topics covered include: the energetic effects of rest, the relationship between awareness and compassion, spiritual bypassing, and how every religion avoids compassion in its own way.

Ideology & Wisdom

1. Shooting Arrows in the Dark: From Experience to Ideology

2. What Are You Searching For? Meditation as Inquiry

3. What Are the Tools For? Remembering the Point of Practice

4. The Slippery Slope from Wisdom to Ideology