The Secular Buddhist Podcast

Bill Merklee Bill Merklee joins us to speak about the recently retired Instant Dharma Streaming Radio. Hi, everyone. As I mentioned in the welcome message, today we’re going to be speaking with Bill Merklee about Instant Dharma Streaming Radio. When Bill was kind enough to join me some months ago to record this interview, Instant…

Ira Rechtshaffer Ira Rechtshaffer joins us to speak about Mindfulness and Madness: Money, Food, Sex and the Sacred. When you hear the phrase, “you’re out of your mind”, what does that call to mind? For me, it’s tinged with madness. And that may not be quite so far from our experience, that when we’re not…

Doug Smith Doug Smith joins us to speak about his paper from the Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, Was the Buddha an Anti-Realist? We see the debate all the time, particularly online. Did Buddha believe this, or did Buddha believe that? In particular, the gravity well seems to deepen when it comes…

Ethan Nichtern Ethan Nichtern joins us to speak about his recent book, The Road Home: A Contemporary Exploration of the Buddhist Path. Hi, everyone. Before we get started with today’s episode, I want to remind the listeners that we’ve started a new podcast which may also interest you. It’s called Present Moment: Mindfulness Practice and…

Brad Warner Brad Warner returns to speak about his exploration of Dogen’s Shobogenzo, Don’t Be A Jerk, And Other Practical Advice from Dogen, Japan’s Greatest Zen Master. If you’re a Soto Zen person, as I’ve been, you’ve probably at least heard of the great work from the founder of our lineage, the Shobogenzo. It can…

Matthew O’Connell Matthew O’Connell and Stuart Baldwin join us to speak about Post Traditional Buddhism, and Imperfect Buddha Podcast. In Buddhism, we have broadly speaking “the big three”: Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. It’s much more complicated than that, of course, but those tend to be the primary branches of traditional Buddhism. Of course, once upon…

Stephen Batchelor Stephen Batchelor returns to speak with us about his newest work, After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age. As we think about the historical veracity of the Buddhist tradition, we may have an accidental tendency to miss some of the more compelling human elements of the story. We forget that these…

Karma Yeshe Rabgye Yeshe Rabgye joins us to speak about pragmatic aspects of Buddha’s teaching. What’s it like to be a monastic in a Tibetan tradition, teaching secular mindfulness in India? Oddly enough, this combination does exist, and a secular approach to Buddhism is of more interest than traditional Buddhism, even when the teacher is…

Rick Heller Rick Heller returns to tell us about Secular Meditation: 32 Practices for Cultivating Inner Peace, Compassion, and Joy — A Guide from the Humanist Community at Harvard. Hi, everyone. Before we get started with today’s episode, I want to remind the listeners that we’ve started a new podcast which may also interest you.…

Ken McLeod Ken McLeod joins us to speak about A Trackless Path, a translation of one of a key poem of the 18th century Tibetan mystic Jigme Lingpa. As we read, reflect, practice, and eventually embody the words and practices of our forebears in the tradition, it’s interesting how much of what they taught sounds…