The Secular Buddhist Podcast

Soryu Forall Soryu Forall joins us to speak about the Center for Mindful Learning. When is a monastery, not a monastery? What defines it as such? Is it the presence of monastics, or perhaps a ritual of purification, or of dedication? Or perhaps the notion of a place of living and learning for those who’ve…

David Loy David Loy joins us to speak about his new book, A New Buddhist Path: Enlightenment, Evolution, and Ethics in the Modern World. 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…

Paul Verhaeghen Paul Verhaeghen joins us to speak about secular Buddhist ethics. One of the common criticisms us atheists and sometimes us Buddhists receive is that we have no morals without a deeply religious conviction to guide us. And yet, many of us secular Buddhists manage to curb our murderous tendencies, and fit right in…

Ian Lawton Ian Lawton joins us to speak about his film project The Dharma Bum, a documentary film about Irish atheist freethinker Laurence Carroll, who went on to become one of the first Westerners to become a Buddhist monk. History is written by the victors. That’s true within Buddhism, too, and not just the evolutionary…

Ali Ashtari Ali Ashtari joins us in this unplugged episode, Spiritual But Not Religious: an Iranian Immigrant Story. Think about this for moment: you grow up with a religious tradition, and it lets you down. Not in the way many of us in the West have been harmed by the privilege of supernatural thinking, but…

Mushim Ikeda Mushim Ikeda and Brenda Salgado join us to talk about encouraging and creating diversity in our sanghas. Hi, everyone. Before we get started with today’s podcast, I want to extend an invitation to those listeners in or near or visiting the Twin Cities of Minnesota. For quite some time we’ve been imagining what…

Tanya McGinnity Tanya McGinnity and John Negru join us to speak about Sumeru Press’s current book project, Writings by Canadian Buddhist Women. After a recent interview, one of the guests asked if I was Canadian. Not really a surprising question. As a Minnesotan for a couple of decades now, the differences between how I sound…

Massimo Pigliucci Science philosopher Massimo Pigliucci joins us to speak about his experiences with stoicism, and we discuss some similarities with secular Buddhism. 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…

Alexander Wynne Alexander Wynne joins us to speak about how we may creatively engage with tradition. Just today the latest issue of Buddhadharma arrived in my mailbox, with a cover story about the mindfulness movement. The piece was introduced by my friend Jenny Wilks, who like many of us lives in the two overlapping but…

David McRaney David McRaney joins us to speak about delusion from his blog and book, You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself. How do we know, what we know? Think about it. How many times have…