Post-Traditional Buddhism Podcast

The Imperfect Buddha Podcast is moving on to new terrain and a new home over at the New Books Network, a location for intelligent conversations. Here's the link: https://newbooksnetwork.com/category/academic-partners/the-imperfect-buddha Past episodes will remain here at Soundcloud for the next six months. You can also listen to all episodes at the host site fro now and forever and catch writings and think piece too, as well as check out my work on coaching. Scroll down for the player: https://imperfectbuddha.com/ It will also continue to be available through Stitcher, itunes and even Spotify. To all those who signed up here to catch regular episodes, a big thank you. I hope you will continue to follow the podcast at its new home. New episodes coming out there continue with the theme of Secular Buddhism with an interview with Stephen Batchelor, followed by another with secular maestro Winton Higgins, and a think piece on Doubt. What you waiting for. Head on over!

From immanent Buddhism to cruel optimism, from secular subjectivity to the unconscious material running through your personal practice, today's episode features a returning guest in the figure of Richard K. Payne who is here to discuss his latest work and the contributions made by many great authors thinking deeply and critically about contemporary Buddhism. Published by Shambhala books, Secularizing Buddhism was released on the 4th August, so if you like what you hear, why not consider getting a copy. It features contributions from Ron Purser, David L. McMahan, Bikkhu Bodhi, Sara Shaw, Gil Fronsdal and many more. Richard K. Payne's first interview with us on Critical Reflections on Buddhism https://soundcloud.com/imperfect-buddha-podcast/48-ibp-richard-k-payne-critical-reflections-on-western-buddhism Links The Imperfect Buddha site: https://imperfectbuddha.com O'Connell Coaching: https://imperfectbuddha.com/authors-notes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

Something like a provocation, something of an introduction; this audio-cast presents a recent piece of work over at the Imperfect Buddha site on non-practice for all those interested in how to apply the non- to the practising life. Built on Complex world, Complex Practice and prior to a series on applied practice, this is the audio version of an elaboration of the opening shots of a revolutionary practice. See what you think, do the warm up and get ready for the main meal. Background music by Funki Porcini https://funkiporcini.bandcamp.com/ Accompanying texts; Complex World, Complex Practice https://imperfectbuddha.com/2021/03/24/complex-world-complex-practice/ You Need Non-Practice! https://imperfectbuddha.com/2021/06/07/you-need-non-practice/

Tina Rassmussen is one of our first meditation teachers on in a long while. Well, being a practice based series, this was inevitable. Tina was co-author of a book on jhana states and concentration that I have had on my shelf for a long time. Concentration is not the topic of our conversation, however. Here are some of the themes we explored; • Compatibility issues between neo-Advaita and Buddhism • Generational conceptions of practice; from Boomers to Millennials • The need to evolve our understanding and ways of thinking about and describing awakening/enlightenment • The phases and stages of a practising life • Roadblocks, hurdles, maturation; limitations • Critiquing the language we use to talk about self, ego, awakening • The way belief shapes practice, perception, expectations and the contours of subjectivity Enjoy the spring everyone and let’s all wish a swift end to this pandemic. https://luminousmindsangha.com/

Who will think on Buddhism? Who has the chops to do so? What does it mean to place Buddhism in a configuration of contemplation alongside other thought and one’s personal experience of living a life in some way intimate with Buddhism as practice, as culture, as being and becoming? Although this season of the podcast is practice focussed, this does not mean a return to the warm bosom of feeling, perception and awareness minus thought. The mind demands expression. We are thinking, feeling, acting beings. To think better is a desire that Buddhism has expressed and struggled with throughout its history. Western Buddhism, especially in the States, has evolved in a variety of expressions and forms, and in many ways that expression has channelled the wider anti-intellectual trend in American popular culture, as well as the return to feeling and intuition, and even the lingering New Age focus in on the self. Sitting is doing is a view shared by today's guest Jane Affleck. An artist, occasional academic, and writer. My desire to get Jane onto the podcast was inspired by a piece she wrote for the Side View. It had a title that caught my attention; Meditative Awareness and the Symbiotic Real. The basic idea was that meditation and meditative relationships with the environment can behave as an antidote to anthropocentrism; an extension, if you will, of our over-focus on the selfing process that Buddhism is so concerned with. If ideology is collective selfing, anthropocentrism is species level selfing; this theme is set to be a central one in practice as this century unfolds so expect more guests on here to discuss it. With Jane, we talk about the intimate relationship with the environment that can be fostered and the way that relationship can challenge experiences of selfhood and many of the traps that accompany a self focussed approach to the practising life. We explore how art and the process of creation are integral to this process too. https://www.jane-affleck.com/ P.S. I chatted with the Side View’s founder a while back and had a rather unusual conversation with him you might like to revisit after this one. https://soundcloud.com/imperfect-buddha-podcast/64-ibp-adam-robbert-on-philosophy-as-a-way-of-life

Down the country path we stroll for another practice episode, this time with our regular guest Glenn Wallis. We go through the personal questions I've been posing to all the guests this season, but we also make time to talk about the non-buddhism practice group, Incite events, and Glenn's new book An Anarchist Manifesto. The episode has a written primer that you may find stimulating: https://imperfectbuddha.com/2021/02/20/nothin-exists-outside-the-podcast/ Links Glenn Wallis: https://www.glennwallis.com/ The Imperfect Buddha site: https://imperfectbuddha.com O'Connell Coaching: https://imperfectbuddha.com/authors-notes Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

And so it goes on. This is our second episode in the new practice series. In the meantime, I had something of an allergic reaction to social media, and the internet more broadly. Despite a pretty disciplined relationship with digital life, I had something akin to an epiphany mid-January and realised that in my own way I had got caught up in maintaining what I am increasingly thinking of as the synthetic real. The digital life is seductive in ways that are not always easy to identify and like many insidious forces in this world, it can creep up on you in unexpected ways. What this means long-term is anyone’s guess. For now, I have reduced my internet time drastically, with time spent on social media cut by 90% and I am thrilled by the results. If such concerns orbit your life too, you may want to check out Jaron Lanier’s work on social media. Our guest this time is Gregory Kramer, insight meditation teacher since the 1980s, he has developed a practice called Insight Dialogue; A sort of interpersonal meditation practice. Gregory teaches meditation, leads retreats and has written two books on Buddhist practice. The first on Insight Dialogue, and the second released in 2020 called A Whole Life Path. Gregory was candid in his answers. There are powerful moments in this episode that arise as we venture down the path of the deeply personal nature of practice. Gregory’s work is rooted in early Buddhist traditions yet he lives a house-holder’s life. His commitment to the practising life is evident throughout. In his own words; “...my own life experience have led me to emphasize an integrated path of development, where individual and interpersonal meditation are joined with contemplation, ethical inquiry, and a commitment to kindness.” Other point of interest, Gregory’s been married for over forty years and has three sons and five grandchildren. He was once a music composer, performer and taught composition at NYU while scoring films, video and dance works. He also developed devices for the music and recording field, and was even a founding figure in the science of auditory display and data sonification. Links The Imperfect Buddha site: https://imperfectbuddha.com O'Connell Coaching: https://imperfectbuddha.com/authors-notes Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha https://gregorykramer.org/

Asian and Buddhist and living in America: Does any of that matter? Those focussed in on practice and not much else regarding Buddhism might proclaim a resounding no. Others, all too aware of the tendency of western practitioners to ignore culture, and Buddhism beyond the meditation cushion might instead bellow forth with a resounding yes! Whatever your take, today’s guest Chenxing Han has written a book that fills a gap in our collective understanding, and appreciation of the role of Asians in making, shaping and living western Buddhism. Be the Refuge is not merely another book obsessed with race and social justice, however. Those themes do appear but it is more than another product in the polarised times we live in. Yes, some of the buzz words and concepts are there, but this book is as much a work of poetry as it is a research project designed to illustrate the often sidelined role of Asians in making and shaping Buddhism in the West. If more than two thirds of U.S. Buddhists are actually Asian American, perhaps it’s worth becoming more aware of them, right? Be the Refuge is both critique and celebration, countering the erasure of Asian American Buddhists while uplifting their stories and experiences. The Oriental monk, the superstitious immigrant, the banana Buddhist: dissatisfied with these tired tropes, Han asks, Will the real Asian American Buddhists please stand up? Her journey to answer this question led to in-depth interviews with a pan-ethnic, pan-Buddhist group of eighty-nine young adults. Weaving together the voices of these interviewees with scholarship and spiritual inquiry, this book reenvisions Buddhist Asian America as a community of trailblazers, bridge-builders, integrators, and refuge-makers. Encouraging frank conversations about race, representation, and inclusivity among Buddhists of all backgrounds, Be the Refuge embodies the spirit of interconnection that glows at the heart of American Buddhism. https://www.chenxinghan.com/ Links The Imperfect Buddha site: https://imperfectbuddha.com O'Connell Coaching: https://imperfectbuddha.com/authors-notes Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

Happy New Year to one and all and welcome to this new season (proper) of the Imperfect Buddha Podcast. Focussed on practice, this season engages Buddhist teachers, long-term practitioners, and creative innovators engaged in the practising life. Interspersed with regular interviews, this practice focussed season finally gets the podcast off of the couch and responding to the long stream of listeners calling for a practice focus. Our first guest is meditation teacher, artist and author, George Haas. George moved to Los Angeles from New York in 1992. He started practising Vipassanā at Ordinary Dharma in Venice, and studying Buddhist texts extensively. In 1998 he began study with his current teacher, Shinzen Young, at Vipassanā Support International, where he is now a senior facilitator. He began teaching meditation in 2000, founded Mettagroup in 2003, and became an empowered teacher through Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society, where he taught from 2007 to 2016. Along with his daily Morning Meditation and full schedule of one-on-one students, he continues to teach weekly classes and intensives in Los Angeles, and offer day-long, weekend and extended retreats around the country. He's also an artist with works in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum, the Library of Congress, MoMA and the American Irish Historical Society. Mettagroup Founded by George Haas in 2003 and named the Best Online Buddhist Meditation by Los Angeles Magazine in 2011, Mettagroup uses insight meditation to help students live a meaningful life. Drawing from Buddhist teachings and John Bowlby's Attachment Theory, the Mettagroup techniques serve as a model of how to connect with other people, and how to be completely yourself in relationships with others and with work. https://www.mettagroup.org/ Links The Imperfect Buddha site: https://imperfectbuddha.com O'Connell Coaching: https://imperfectbuddha.com/authors-notes Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

Santiago Zabala was once described as a most ignorant philosopher by the American philosopher Brian Leiter: An interesting take that one will need to interpret for themselves in listening to this conversation on fake news, the role of interpretation, freedom, and being at large. Santiago is not at all ignorant, of course, and might be better understood as a pluralistic thinker in the stream of European philosophy, thus accompanying living thinkers such as Slavoj Zizek, and Simon Critchley; philosophers who aren’t afraid to risk controversy by expressing ideas and opinions on all manner of topic, from film to Covid. Thinkers that Mr Leiter no doubt dislikes, in fact he considers poor old Zizek to be a charlatan and bigot! American Imperialism indeed! Santiago is rooted in the hermeneutic tradition of philosophy and we discuss the role and unavoidability of interpretation in our relationship with the world, and the latest phenomena of fake news, online battles, and the wider sphere of social life, politics, and, that topic so fundamental to western Buddhists, freedom. What is freedom today? What would it mean to use the concept of ’being at large’ to understand how we might or might not be free today? What does it mean to have a return to order? We cover this and more in this conversation which stretches well beyond the world of Buddhism, but also philosophy, by looking at how society is evolving today. We discuss Santiago’s latest book, Being at Large: Freedom in the Age of Alternative Facts, but asides from his books you can also find his writing in The Guardian, The New York Times, and Aeon, to name a few. This is the third in this trifecta of episodes signalling a return to podcasting for the Imperfect Buddha Podcast. Links The Imperfect Buddha site: https://imperfectbuddha.com O'Connell Coaching: https://imperfectbuddha.com/authors-notes Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

This episode involves a conversation with the Tibetologist Sam van Schaik. Sam wrote his original PHd thesis on Dzogchen and the work of Jigme Lingpa and has been involved in the International Dunhuang Project at the British Library, where he currently works, and also teaches at the SOAS University in London. He also happened to write one of my favourite books on Tibet, called appropriately, Tibet: A History. Well-written, entertaining and informative, Sam’s overview of the history of the country that has lived larger than life as a place holder for all manner of western fantasy is a book with academic chops but aimed at a general audience. If you like Donald S. Lopez’s work on Tibet and Buddhism, this is one for you for sure. We discuss it as well as his book Tibetan Zen but the lion’s share of the conversation concerns his latest work on Buddhist Magic. Something of a companion piece to Tibet: A History, it looks at the role magic has played throughout the history of Buddhism and in the wider world of Buddhism today beyond Mindfulness, Secularism, and the cute fantasy that westerners hold that Buddhism is not a religion, but a philosophy. Such folks might like to wonder if the other world religions have ever made similar claims too. I get a story in about my first encounter with the Shugden Oracle in case you are interested. Links The Imperfect Buddha site: https://imperfectbuddha.com O'Connell Coaching: https://imperfectbuddha.com/authors-notes Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

In an attempt to make more sense of non-Philosophy, and therefore non-Buddhism, I interview Irish philosopher and academic John O Maoilearca, the author of All Thoughts Are Equal, an exceptionally accessible introduction to the work of that pesky French philosopher Francois Laruelle, who we’ve been name dropping on the podcast for quite some time. Laruelle's work navigates an interesting paradox. On the one hand it can be incredibly straightforward, perhaps more so for those who have not been indoctrinated into philosophical thought. On the other, it presents a wide range of challenges to established philosophy and systematic modes of thought, including those found in Buddhism. We talk about non-philosophy as a heuristic in this regard, therefore as a kind of practice that people can engage in, and experience certain kinds of liberation through. A practice, I would argue, that compliments Buddhist ideals and fits perfectly well into the practicing life for those intrigued by post-traditional explorations of Buddhist materials, notions and practice techniques. In part, this episode acts as a preparation for grappling with non-Philosophy and so we unpack three of its most important concepts. Topics include; • What makes Laruelle’s non-Philosophy so radical and so intriguing for the world we live in today? • The Democracy of Thought. • What are we to make of the democratization in an age of alternative facts, and the difficulty of distinguishing narrative and reality in polarized times? • Decision, sufficiency, and The Real. • The most important contribution John’s book makes to Laurellian thought. • Where non-philosophy is heading. • Henri Bergson & Mysticism. Links The Imperfect Buddha site: https://imperfectbuddha.com O'Connell Coaching: https://imperfectbuddha.com/authors-notes Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

"How do animals think? What does it mean to be at large? What is Buddhist Magic or even Tibetan Zen? These are questions posed by the three guests to follow in a rather lovely triad of interviews and conversations for the Imperfect Buddha Podcast; each one unique and diverse, each with a European guest, each tackling a topic that has long interested me: from non-Philosophy to Freedom in our age, from seeing Tibet without the romanticism, to the role of interpretation as a fundamental facet of existence. Mysticism, Fake News, and animals all get a look in too." Taken from this intro to the new season of a resurrected podcast. To be fair, it had never really been assigned to the tomb, but rather, was resting. With three episodes being released back to back, this super short intro provides an overview of what's to come and will help you to decide what to listen to. Links The Imperfect Buddha site: https://imperfectbuddha.com O'Connell Coaching: https://imperfectbuddha.com/authors-notes Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

Rethinking Practice at the Great Feast @INCITE Seminars Saturday, July 25th, 10am-2pm EST / 4-8pm Europe /3pm-7pm UK. Online via Zoom. Come and join us on the 25th at Incite Seminars for an original workshop on Buddhism at the Great Feast for Incite Seminars. Pay what you can and dive into this experimental event online through Zoom. Description below. Western Buddhism and spirituality more broadly provide us with a rich menu of practices, messages and visions of the human condition and what is possible and even desirable to do, avoid, and strive for within a human life. Yet, as many of us have come to realize, these practices, messages and curative fantasies do not always live up to expectation. The overly prescriptive ideals of what it means to be human, what practice is, and what we should be doing with it all too often reduce the Buddhist practitioner to the role of a passive performer of tradition and can lead to a loss of faith, disenchantment, and the feeling of having been conned. Can critique and disenchantment lead us to creatively reclaim our sense of ourselves apart from tradition, and discover new lines of inquiry, practice, and ways of relating? In this hands- and minds-on workshop, we will explore the possibilities of making a new relationship to Buddhist practice through the concept of the The Great Feast of Knowledge. This concept, articulated by Glenn Wallis, asks what happens when we invite any kind of thought, practice, insight or claim to exit its ideological bubble and interact with the great, vast planes of knowledge, human struggle, and discovery that sit outside the walls of its meaning-making apparatus? What might happen if we were to bring figures like the Scottish philosopher John Grey or the postmodern concept of hyperreality into our meditation practice? What would it mean to go on retreat with the ideas of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Martin Heidegger, or the work of Social Anthropologist Tim Ingold? A key idea from Francois Laurelle that will be useful to us here is the democracy of thought, which served as an inspiration for Wallis’s Feast. Laurelle poses that all thought is equal, and for us that means that our own thought can participate at the feast if we can just muster up some courage. There is a price to pay, of course. You must expose your inner-world, and your private practice, your secret desires, needs, and fears, to the wider world and risk their disruption, and even destruction. Armed with epistemic humility and renewed curiosity, whatever happens, the Great Feast brings us back into the collective struggle of our species to come to terms with the human condition. This experimental and explorative workshop may serve to help those who are disillusioned by the whole project of Buddhism, or the spiritual, to find a way forward that remains critical but infuses personal practice with new life. Post-traditional and non-Buddhist tools will be explored initially, though we may manage to make some our own in the process.

Ok, I went and did something a little bit different. I spoke directly to the time we live in. It may work. It may not. This is the first in a short series of audio articles. You can read the text version if you prefer over at the Imperfect Buddha site. It steers a path towards the practising life through the tumultuous times we inhabit...in stages. This is the preamble...and this is the intro to the it from the site; "And so it begins. This is clearly the preamble, but to what? A short series on the world we currently inhabit with a view to ho the practising life might engage it. Can we think away from the enticing polarised landscape we are often pulled into by social media, the media and the politics of the moment. It's not enough to remain aloof, or indifferent, so what do we do? Not, what should we do, that's not up to me, but how could we relate, openly, with curiosity, with presence, with care, with intellectual honesty, with a refusal to kowtow to the unthinking games of politics on display. Engage politically, but avoid the allure of merging with the crowd, and the cheap payoffs promised, or dive deeply into a tribe and swim in their idealogical formations and performance; both can be worth a try if you can hold your shit together as you do so. Heaven forbid I should advise you to do otherwise. What I will do though is explore out-loud, and possibly fail. Either way, I'm willing to have a go. This is not only a paper bound, screen bound written affair. If you'd prefer to listen, there's an audio version of this text, with a twist. Here it is if you want to head off in that direction. If not, read on." Links The Imperfect Buddha site: https://imperfectbuddha.com/ O'Connell Coaching: https://imperfectbuddha.com/authors-notes/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

A new episode is here. The lingering challenge of conspiracies, fake news, and the emergence of information silos means that we as a global society are being confronted with a major challenge to our relationship to information, to facts, and to the epistemological challenges we have always been burdened with regarding knowledge and the act of knowing. Conspiracy Theories are with us to stay and if you look at them for longer than a glance, they begin to mutate, twisting into odd shapes that can appear familiar and alien all at once. We cannot afford to look down our nose at them any more, they are part and parcel of the world we inhabit, and we must contend with the wider issues they raise. In this episode, recorded under quarantine, the Imperfect Buddha podcast explores the wider, hidden implications of the conspiratorial mindset and the challenges it represents. We look at its close relationship with spirituality, religion, and the New Age. We go deep into the psychology, the epistemological challenges, and explore practice ideas and the ethical duty we may all do well to consider exhibiting towards those enchanted by global conspiracy. We have tried to avoid treading familiar ground and the practice suggestions are not only for conspiracy theorists; they are for us too. For as we suggested in our episodes on cults (whose members share many characteristics with dogged conspiracy theorists), we have our own role to play in the world of conspiracies. Feedback as always is welcomed. Feel free to support the podcast by making a small donation. O’Connell Coaching is available to those in need - Conspiracy Theorists are welcome too. Music for this episode comes from Odd Nosdam: https://nosdam.bandcamp.com/ Links The Imperfect Buddha site: https://imperfectbuddha.com/ O'Connell Coaching: https://imperfectbuddha.com/authors-notes/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

“In a society that has no future, the present gains exponentially in importance.” In the time of Corona, what are we to do with happiness? Today’s guest is an expert on the subject and the well-being industry. Dr Ashley Frawley studies the relationship between the ideology of self-care, technologies of the self and wider social policy and practice. In her book, The Semiotics of Happiness, she explores the roots of happiness and its inclusion as a goal of wider society. We discuss Mindfulness, its rise, and possible wane, and the ideas that underpin the culture of self-development, as well as what might come after the Mindfulness fad. We talk about the current pandemic and the impact if might have on the obsession with the self. “If your purpose in life is emotional well-being then any upset is an attack on your whole purpose in life.” Topics covered include; • Is happiness increasing or decreasing after decades of experimentation with practices such as self-esteem, self-development, and Mindfulness? • What happens to a society that has no future, or no real collective future goals? • Mindfulness as the acceptance that we cannot change the world, or resolve social problems: a commitment to passivity. • Is mindfulness on the wane? If so, what magic bullet comes next? • Spiritual narratives and the one cure to save them all; how technologies of the self escape critique. • Mindfulness promoted as a magical bullet • Have we given up on solving social problems in meaningful ways? • The role of tradition and our commitment to something greater than ourselves vs freedom to apparently do whatever you want. • Self-obsession and centering happiness within yourself leads to misery • Our search for meaning and truth have turned inwards; as there are no external projects for meaning making people seeking meaning from self-help books, rules for life, quick cures. • Humans need collective, future orientated projects, where we have agency and can act on the world • Misanthropy as a consequence of the focus in on the self; profound distrust in humans Today’s Menu Starters: Corona virus Update 00:00-04:00 First course: Lama Surya Das & Twitter 04:00-15:40 Main course: Ashley Frawley 15:40 starts Enjoy! And come along to The Great Feast... Links Mother site: https://imperfectbuddha.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha Dr Ashley Frawley’s University page: https://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/human-and-health-sciences/allstaff/a.frawley/ Music: Odd Nosdam https://nosdam.bandcamp.com/

The Practising Life in many ways starts when there is a crisis. Our capacity to walk the talk, make our practice more than a mere means for survival, or for managing the banality of our existence is tested. Buddhism has many resources for facing crisis, but there is another tradition that is just as good, if not better; Stoicism. And some of its proponents lived through their own pandemics, and faced them head on. Albert Camus makes an appearance too. In this short, improvised episode of the Imperfect Buddha Podcast, I provide a dispatch from Italy and life at the start of a third week under quarantine. I also provide thoughts, suggestions and ideas on the practising life in a time of crisis. There are also a number of predications on the sort of future we might face at the end. This is my small act of kindness, a theme that is fundamental in making sure that we live this crisis rather than merely survive it, and I hope you find something of value in this topical episode and live well the days, weeks, and months to come. Feel free to get in touch if you'd like support and coaching in facing this crisis. Links The Imperfect Buddha site: https://imperfectbuddha.com/ O'Connell Coaching: https://imperfectbuddha.com/authors-notes/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

This Turn takes us deep, deep down into the deep dark world of ideology to show why it's such a fundamental concept for understanding ourselves and the world, and the entanglement between the two, in an articulation of the concept of interdependence that rarely gets explored by Buddhists or spiritual folks alike. Three Europeans will help us on our way and after regular requests, I provide some practice tips, a new Bodhisattva vow and more. Though practise tips are actually present throughout and the more discerning listener will see just how much gold dust and nuggets can be sifted from this enduring topic: too often dismissed or merely articulated in its grossest form. If it’s all too much, you might want to listen in more than one sitting and ponder the goods served up by these great thinkers and my own humble attempt to make their ideas as relevant and contemporary as possible to practitioners like you, and why not, if needed, wash it all down with a nice cup of Ted Meissner tea. Menu of the Day: Great Feast Specials 01. Overview of the themes that ideology forces us to confront. 02. Antonio Gramsci; ideas that capture populations and Buddhist groups, cultural hegemony...interdependence of the underappreciated kind. 03. Antoine Destutt de Tracy: coining ideology, the science of ideas, the sensual nature of ideas, ideaophobes...feelings are wrapped in ideology (who would’ve thought it). 04. Louis Althusser: identification, capture, the naturalness of it all...how ideology is in your subjective experience and on your meditation cushion. 05. Practise tips: entering the Great Feast, the bodhisattva vow...committing to the world beyond our dreams and fantasies. Background music is provided by some wonderful local musicians from Trieste; Riccardo Morpurgo Trio, a jazz ensemble, and Amorth, a music producer and electronic music artist. Along with these two dynamos, we have a fantastic Trip Hop artist still going strong from the UK, Funki Porcini. Links The Imperfect Buddha site: https://imperfectbuddha.com/ O'Connell Coaching: https://imperfectbuddha.com/authors-notes/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

Podcast meets Podcast. Adam Robbert from the Sideview boards the Imperfect Buddha to discuss the work of Pierre Hardot, author of Philosophy as a Way of Life, along with a long list of our shared favourite topics. We get into the nitty-gritty of the practising life, contemplation, reflection, embodied consciousness and martial arts, the path ahead, challenges on the way, and more. This is most definitely a Great Feast conversation. Links The Imperfect Buddha site: https://imperfectbuddha.com/ O'Connell Coaching: https://imperfectbuddha.com/authors-notes/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha More on Adam's philosophically minded work can be found at the Sideview: https://thesideview.co/

Off we go with our first long-form interview/conversation for 2020, and it’s with returning guest Daniel Ingram! Are you ready for more? It seems that many of you are. Back in 2019 when Daniel was visiting here in Trieste, we discussed a range of material we might cover on the podcast and one topic that repeatedly came up for Mr Ingram was his take on Integral Theory. We finally got the conversation done before Christmas and here it is. For this one I play the devil’s advocate somewhat as my knowledge on Ken Wilber’s work was quite limited and I had heard mainly complaints about it from our more educated listeners. As always, however, it was a pleasurable conversation and Daniel’s take on Wilber’s core theory seems pretty attractive as a model for understanding stages of growth, both for individuals and groups. We cover sex scandals, power grabs, groupy love, spaced-out gurus, religious fundamentalists, and how we are all too human. See what you think, and don’t forget to visit Daniel’s website; it’s called Integrated Daniel after all. https://www.integrateddaniel.info/ For those new to the podcast, and crazy for Daniel’s enlightenment stories and pragmatism, there is a plethora of past conversations to enjoy. From our first ever conversation with him years back, there’s a far more recent and fun series on non-Buddhism in which Daniel tackles the Speculative non-Buddhism project as well as an episode looking into the Practising Life; our theme for this year of podcast episodes. 55. IBP: Daniel Ingram Down the Rabbit Hole: https://soundcloud.com/imperfect-buddha-podcast/55-ibp-daniel-ingram-down-the-rabbit-hole 54. IBP: Daniel Ingram Meets Trash Theory: https://soundcloud.com/imperfect-buddha-podcast/54-ibp-daniel-ingram-meets-trash-theory 53. IBP: Daniel Ingram on the Practicing Life: https://soundcloud.com/imperfect-buddha-podcast/53-ibp-daniel-ingram-on-the-practicing-life Our next episode will be with Adam Robbert, host of the Side View podcast and journal, before our first ever oral blog post series on…ideology.

What's coming up in 2020 in the coming months? Find out by listening to this tidy little introduction and update on the podcast. Music provided by Funki Poricini: https://funkiporcini.bandcamp.com/

This is our fourth foray into the land of Buddhism, Cults and Cult-like behaviours across mainstream Buddhist groups. Let’s be honest, this topic is always perversely interesting. If you missed out on our past episodes covering these topics, there are links and short intros below to those past episodes, which were a lot of fun. For our latest journey, we interview Dr Michelle Haslam, PhD, a clinical psychologist who ran afoul of the machinations of the New Kadampa Tradition (NKT) and has since written a psychological report on their tactics and set up a resource site filled with testimonies from ex-followers along with articles to warn the general public about their often dysfunctional behaviour. She shares some of the horrendous tactics employed against her after leaving the group and discusses some of her psychological analysis of the NKT, their practices and group dynamics. She is also currently working in an undisclosed location despite mentioning that she has worked  in safeguarding in the interview previously. Michelle has had a dreadful website put together by a mysterious psychologist, who doesn't actually appear to exist in the real world, immediately after publishing her report. It's defamatory and quite sad and makes awful claims about her. Be your own judge of it should you stumble on it. The introduction involves an added presentation on cults that ties together the multiple themes from our last episodes and that concludes our forays into cult-land. If you have heard it all before, you can skip it by jumping to the interview proper at 37.10. Note: Those who critique the New Kadampa Tradition often end up being trolled, attacked, and threatened by folks, who hide their identities and usually claim to not be any part of the NKT. It is obviously difficult to prove that they are so I am putting this here as a potential warning so that you dear listener can make up our own mind about who is to blame if this podcast should come under attack. Here are the links to her sites, which are highly recommended; https://newkadampatraditionreport.org/ https://info-buddhism.com/PDF/Psychological_report_on_The_New_Kadampa_Tradition.pdf https://buddhism-controversy-blog.com/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/exposingthenkt/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/talkaboutshugden/ Our past episodes on cults; 04. IBP: cults, cultish shennanigans & Buddhist groups https://soundcloud.com/imperfect-buddha-podcast/31-imperfect-buddha-podcast-cults-cultish-shennanigans-buddhist-groups 05. IBP: Tenzin Peljor on leaving a Buddhist cult https://soundcloud.com/imperfect-buddha-podcast/32-imperfect-buddha-podcast-tenzin-peljor-interview 27. IBP: Why not join a cult? Stuart & Matthew go deep into cult-land. https://soundcloud.com/imperfect-buddha-podcast/151-imperfect-buddha-podcast-cults-2

In a time of environmental meltdown, political and economic crisis, what should we do? What role can practice play? How are we to envision our place in the world, as protagonists in the destruction of our home, and mere bit part players in global conflict? Can we make a difference, or should we retreat to our personal spaces and meditate and be done with it? This new episode of the podcast explores such big themes and the work of Brooke D. Lavelle and Zachary Walsh, our two guests, as we take a look at the bifurcated road ahead of us; a Great Transition, or a Great Collapse await. While many of us may like to see life continue on as usual, I think most folks are starting to realise that business as usual is killing us slowly. It is time to make change move in a direction that sees us and the many species surviving this century, but practice remains, as Sloterdjik would remind us, and the big picture is always grounded in the lives of practitioners in this conversation. We discuss such uncomfortable topics as love, care, practice and transformation. We touch on environmentalism, activisms, but also the underlying themes challenging these worlds of work at present and the need to both practice and think and imagine the world differently. Zachary Walsh https://www.iass-potsdam.de/en/people/zack-walsh Brooke D. Lavelle http://courageofcare.org/our-team-2/brooke-d-lavelle/ Responding with Love to a Civilisation in Crisis: article for Open Democracy https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/responding-love-civilization-crisis/ Enjoy! And come along to The Great Feast... Links Mother site: https://imperfectbuddha.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

Our year long-series on practice continues and we stray further into the world of politics and economics with this episode's guest. Economics is a form of human practice of course, and not a solid, eternal fixed inevitability. Like politics, it's a topic often resisted by spiritual and religious folks. In a democracy, we would all do well to educate further on this topic, so why not combine a conversation on Buddhism and economics? That's just what we have done in this episode with Clair Brown, who is an economist at U.C. Berkley. In this episode we discuss Buddhist Economics, the name of her book on the topic. Clair has been active in seeking to construct and teach alternatives to the free market, neo-liberal economic model we are still living under and Buddhism, along with the work of E.F. Schumacher, plays a role. Using real world evidence and data, she has been developing policies towards an economics more suited to our 21st century plight and a reduction of suffering globally. Clair has a dedicated website on the topic with a reading group section for those interested in working with her book. https://buddhisteconomics.net/ Links Imperfect Buddha Site with Coaching info: https://imperfectbuddha.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

Professor of philosophy, religion and integral ecology, at San Francisco University, Sam Mickey is our guest in this episode. We tackle many a topic but return throughout to the theme of the Great Feast, and embodiment, in facing existential threat, and environmental decay. We tackle the theme of justice too. Many of the themes connect to titles of his books including; On the verge of a Planetary Civilisation: A Philosophy of Integral Philosophy, and the wonderfully demanding title, Co-existentialism and the Unbearable Intimacy of Ecological Emergency. Do not panic, however, Sam is a wonderful conversationalist and shares my own hopeful outlook on our future, and this is evident throughout. He also anticipates a future conversation with the ever-present Daniel Ingram in which we will tackle integral theory and the work of Ken Wilber. Links Imperfect Buddha Site with Coaching info: https://imperfectbuddha.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

It took a long time to get this one done and I hope it was worth it. Please note that the creative extras took up very little of that time, rather, it was finding a way to talk about big issues as a living practice beyond partisan politics and ideological capture. This podcast episode tackles politics as living culture and suggests that complexity marks our age in a way that we cannot ignore, but almost always do. From Twitter to CNN and Fox News, very little thought seems to go into public discourse these days. It's all about the hits, whether emotional or site visits. This podcast episode invites you to change games and provides you with some tools for doing so. It also offers some meta positions on it all & doesn't forget to include Buddhism in the discussion. It will no doubt disappoint some, excite others, anger a few, and turn off others. For some of you, it may be a small act of sanity in a world going increasingly off the rails. There are extensive show-notes covering the music and background of the episode. You'll find them here: https://posttraditionalbuddhism.com/2019/08/08/the-political-turn-entering-the-great-feast/#more-1522 That is also the best site to leave comments, complaints, praise, or indifference. Follow up guests will tackle politics, practice and Buddhism. Enjoy! And come along to The Great Feast... Links O'Connell Coaching: https://oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: https://posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

It's been another busy period but finally it's time for Cleo Kearn's interview to be released into the world before I head off on holiday. Ritual and Resistance is the title of our conversation as we tackle ritual, religion, Buddhism, resistance and change. We discuss the following topics in the first half; Continental Philosophy, Anthropology and Religion, religious sacrifice, Shamanism and Catholicism, Durkheim and Lacan. And then go deep into discussing ritual; its ubiquity, its role in societies, why some survive and others don't, its role in social formation and dissolution, freeing and managing desire, selfhood, challenges to ritual in our age, Buddhism and Tantra, death, activism, innovation and more. Enjoy! Links O'Connell Coaching: https://oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: https://posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

Are we all going down it too? Daniel Ingram returns to the podcast for a third and final conversation and what a rich one it was. I believe it is well worth your time. After reading some Trash Theory, Daniel accepted Glenn Wallis’s challenge to read his book and after exploring the infamous SNB heuristic, based on the work of the rascally Frenchman Francois Laruelle, he came in for round three. We go back to the heuristic that started off the Trash Theorising, touching on Decision, Sufficiency, and the Great Feast of Knowledge, before exploring novel takes on refuge, philosophy and practice. The first two recordings have solicited quite a lot of reaction from folks on Facebook and Twitter and at the Post-Traditional Buddhism blog. This includes Tom Wooldrige who has a new blog dedicated, it seems, to critiquing Daniel’s Pragmatic Dharma approach from a psychological perspective that has stimulated reaction too. Subsequently Evan Thompson has chimed in on Daniel’s views, as has David Chapman, and Glenn Wallis. This is a sort of eruption and a sign of the feast taking place. I argue that we need more of these kinds of conversations. Let’s see what you think after hearing this final one in this series. There are lots of episodes connected to this conversation, some of which you might like to give a listen to as well. 54. IBP: Daniel Ingram Meets Trash Theory: https://soundcloud.com/imperfect-buddha-podcast/54-ibp-daniel-ingram-meets-trash-theory 53. IBP: Daniel Ingram on the Practicing Life: https://soundcloud.com/imperfect-buddha-podcast/53-ibp-daniel-ingram-on-the-practicing-life 52. IBP: Critical Turn #1: https://soundcloud.com/imperfect-buddha-podcast/52-ibp-critical-turn-1 26. IBP: Evan Thompson on Philosophy, Buddhism, & Embodied Consciousness: https://soundcloud.com/imperfect-buddha-podcast/ibp-140-evan-thompson-on-philosophy-buddhism-embodied-consciousness 15. IBP: the liberating force of non-Buddhism: https://soundcloud.com/imperfect-buddha-podcast/91-imperfect-buddha-podcast-meets-non-buddhism Links O'Connell Coaching: https://oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: https://posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha Music provided by https://hundredstrong.bandcamp.com/album/voices

You’ve had the initial goods and as promised here’s the second helping of Mr Daniel Ingram. This conversation gets right to the point and tackles, in a rather condensed and humble manner, a work of collective, creative production over at the Speculative non-Buddhism site called Trash Theory; an exploration of practice beyond decision, beyond enchantment, beyond capture. Well, that’s the plan anyway. We start out with a quick chat about the SNB, x-Buddhism and non-Buddhism, before going through a number of postulates, or principles for practice, that have been explored and are continuing to be developed by Glenn Wallis and company. We went through it pretty quickly as we just had an hour to play with, but it was fun and an interesting exploration that will be continued in a follow up conversation to be recorded this Thursday. You’ll find a link to the original post we worked from below, though there are, at the time of writing, six posts on the theme at hand. This one is a good start for the curious and it’s pretty accessible. Both episodes with Daniel feature the same introduction so if you have already heard the first conversation, you will want to skip it. It’s possible that Dan and I will tackle some of Ken Wilber’s work in the follow up to Trash Theory, so if you have any insights into why Wilber was full of it, or specific points that underline problems with Ken’s work more generally, let me have them, as I have only a superficial reading of his work and never felt motivated to read beyond a general introduction to his ideas, which seem pretty simplistic, though potentially useful. Either way, enjoy this turn of events as we continue to dive into practice on this season of the Imperfect Buddha Podcast. Speculative non-Buddhism: Trash Theory #3: https://speculativenonbuddhism.com/2019/05/15/trash-theory-preliminary-materials-for-an-image-of-practice-3/ Music is supplied by Chaouche; https://chaouche.bandcamp.com/ ......and Kali Phoenix & Hundred Strong: https://hundredstrong.bandcamp.com/album/voices Links O'Connell Coaching: https://oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: https://posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

After the creative wonders of the Critical Turn #1, we have the magical appearance of Daniel Ingram in two conversations covering a great deal of ground. Our first conversation covers a wide range of topics from practice to waking up, from generation-X to cynicism. The second covers a series of posts from the Speculative non-Buddhism site called Trash Theory. We discuss the SNB briefly and then tackle some weird and wonderful postulates those boys have been playing with of late. That second episode will be released within the next 24 hours. Both episodes feature the same introduction and will be released in the same week. This is because folks will likely get more out of one episode than the other; though I shall post them in the order we recorded them. The second episode is also incomplete and Daniel and I will be recording its follow up this coming Thursday (20th June, 2019), which means you have the opportunity to chip in with your own comments, complaints or curiosities, though you’ll obviously have to be quick. It’s possible that we will also tackle some of Ken Wilber’s work in that episode and Daniel’s take on it, so if you have any insights into why Wilber was full of it, or specific points that underline problems with Ken’s work more generally, let me have them, as I have only a superficial reading of his work and never felt motivated to read beyond a general introduction to his ideas, which seem pretty simplistic, though potentially useful. Music is supplied by Kali Phoenix & Hundred Strong: https://hundredstrong.bandcamp.com/album/voices Links O'Connell Coaching: https://oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: https://posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

Critical turn #1 On a deep dark night in a deep dark wood, something strange happened over at the Imperfect Buddha podcast. Was it a moment of folly? Was it a moment of genuine madness? It remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure is that a critical turn took place and in good company too. For in that deep dark wood there was a gathering and a fire and those who turned up were Samuel Beckett, Peter Sloterdjik, Francois Laruelle, and Evelyn Underhill. Animal presences could also be heard amongst the trees and in the undergrowth, whilst the fire crackled away providing the warmth that would stimulate a rather atypical exploration of recent themes to appear on the podcast. This is the first of perhaps many critical turns, or, if it is deemed a forest fire like disaster by listeners and critics, it may be consumed as a one-off event, just like a Tibetan sand painting. As I have been saying for several episodes now, the creative and the critical are great bedfellows and this is my expression of a meeting between the two. There are strange sound effects, music, disembodied voices and narration. For the more practically minded, what I do is lay out a number of principles for guiding a sort of critical engagement with Buddhism, Buddhist materials, and practice materials more broadly beyond spirituality. I also reflect on the topic of mysticism which came up in my conversation with Ken and Hokai. This is in fact the intention for future critical turns, to pick up on and addressed issues left over from conversations with guests, identify unanswered questions, and make links to broader issues covered in the life time of the podcast. This may also produce interesting material to explore with future guests. It is an experiment, so it may or may not work. Feedback will hopefully be worthwhile and indicate the direction that further critical turns take. Prepare yourselves, expect the unexpected, and try not to take it all too seriously. Comments, complaints, suggestions, corrections, pledges of large sums of money, can all be made at the usual places. Enjoy the show! Links O'Connell Coaching: https://oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: https://posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

This is the second instalment of my wide-ranging conversation with Ken McLeod and Hokai Sobol. It features an extended introduction that is, in part, a response to feedback from episode 50, and I invite our more critically leaning listeners to gift feedback on what is an ongoing experiment in crafting conversations that will increasingly respond to the challenges raised and explored throughout the life of this podcast. The conversation was largely unplanned and improvised & this means it features free-flowing exploration, rather than a programmed engagement with a few straightforward ideas. We journey into the terrain of mysticism and practice and most of the topics covered are explored within the context of these two. Here's just some of what we cover; - Mysticism - Sloterdjik & Jonathon Haidt (Žižek too!) - Ethics V Morality - Social duty & mystical practice - Universal human rights & authority - Transactional & utilitarian approaches to practice - Verbing outcomes: nirvana & freedom as practices - Purity & purification - Critical thinking & engaging with the taboos of our time - Risqué practices & the Protestant strain in western Buddhism - Teacher/Student relationships & ongoing challenges End music is by Bristol based artist Aisha Chaouche and is called "So what?" https://chaouche.bandcamp.com/ Enjoy the episode and let us know what you think at the usual places. Links O'Connell Coaching: https://oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: https://posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

This is a quick introduction to help you on your way through the new season of the Imperfect Buddha Podcast. After a year of traipsing the globe with academics in an outrageous attempt to address the anti-intellectualism rife across Buddhism, and spirituality more generally, we have landed with both feet on the ground in the terrain of practice. The challenge for this season is clear: to approach the whole concept of practice afresh. Not ignoring the past, but looking at it all in as contemporary a lens as possible, whilst bringing the great wealth of knowledge gained from our academics to bear on the personal, the subjective, the intimate, and the phenomenological. Our first foray into such terrain is carried out in Kostrena, Croatia with Ken McLeod and Hokai Sobol and together we discussed all manner of topic from practice to culture wars, from Peter Sloterdjik to Jonathon Haidt, from non-conceptual mind to evil, from social duty to the great themes of our time, and the way they all interrelate with practice. The conversation is divided into two parts. Being recorded live outside the studio, the quality is not the best but it is perfectly listenable and I hope the occasional passing car and slight echo won’t get in the way of your listening pleasure. End music provided by The Naturals from Bristol. The track is entitled 2HGS and is rather wild. Enjoy the episode and let us know what you think at the usual places. Links O'Connell Coaching: https://oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: https://posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

We have come to the end of our series engaging with academics from the world of Buddhist studies and other relevant disciplines and what better way to complete it than with an interview with Donald S. Lopez Jr. Donald is the Arthur E. Link distinguished professor of Buddhist and Tibetan studies at Michigan University and the well-known author of many books on Buddhism. He specialises in late Indian Mahayana Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism and his books include Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West, The Madman’s Middle Way, Buddhism and Science: a Guide for the Perplexed, The Tibetan Book of the Dead: a Biography, and two titles that will be coming out this year with one on the Lotus Sutra that I am looking forward to. Donald’s books are aimed at the general public as well as fellow academics and they are entertaining and very well written. He draws on rich historical analysis and contemporary analytical tools for understanding complex religious phenomena and the West’s relationship with them in a way that is insightful and illuminating. They are also full of unexpected moments and wit. Donald and I talk about his work, his writing, his books, Buddhism, philosophy, and more. It was a pleasure and honour for me to speak with him and I think this is a great way to round up this series before we move on to the practitioner and teacher cycle later this year. Thank you for listening to the podcast and I hope you found it as stimulating as I have. Music by Ghosts & Kate Stapley Links O'Connell Coaching: https://oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: https://posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

We reach our penultimate episode in this series with Buddhist academics. Richard K. Payne is former Dean of the Institute of Buddhist Studies and Yehan Numata Professor of Japanese Buddhist Studies at the Institute of Buddhist Studies at Berkley. Richard also trained as a Shingon Priest, and provides interesting insight into Buddhism at his blog, Critical Reflections on Buddhist Thought. We get stuck into a whole range of topics in the conversation, from White Buddhism to perennialism, from Robert Wright's Why Buddhism is True? to mind-body dualism. We also touch on popular themes to the podcast such as transcendence, ideology and anti-intellectualism. You will find the article on Traditionalist Representations of Buddhism at the podcast site, along with further links: http://posttraditionalbuddhism.com This article is discussed and it is is a must read for contextualizing some of the odd fantasies Westerners still hold onto regarding Buddhism. There is also a slightly longer introduction than usual which contextualizes this year's output, provides a view to where we're heading and provides a few updates. Incite Events: https://inciteseminars.com/seminars-calendar/ Links O'Connell Coaching: http://oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: http://posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: http://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

Here we are, the last in our three-part series on Buddhist Modernism, post-Modernism, and what comes after. We hope you've enjoyed it and found it educational and are ready for the final run. Professor Ann Gleig joins the podcast from sunny Florida for a discussion of her brand new book 'American Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Modernity'. Our discussion centres on her text and expands out to touch on issues such as social justice, recent sexual scandals in Buddhist communities, the loss of boundaries between the academic and practitioner, and obviously, lots more. A big theme in Ann's book is the development of post-modern influences in the current western Buddhist landscape, she explores multiple modernities and the ways scholars are attempting to make sense of the changes afoot, which you dear listener are part of. Ann's book is as new as can be, surveying the current landscape of American Buddhism and beyond. Find out more about Ann at: https://philosophy.cah.ucf.edu/faculty-staff/?id=569 Links O'Connell Coaching: https://oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: https://posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha Music from Bristol's Idles. I couldn't resist putting on their very punky 'White Privilege', which will make sense when you get through the interview.

In this second part of the series on Buddhist modernism, Buddhist post-modernism, and what comes next, I interview David L. McMahan, who is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin & Marshall College in the US. David is the well-known author of The Makings of Buddhist Modernism, which had a serious impact on more learned, thinking Buddhists in the West who were willing to challenge some of their assumptions about Buddhism and its development here. David’s book acted as an analysis of the Western influences on how Buddhism was shaped and showed that they had an insipid influence in ways that practitioners were generally oblivious to. From the role of romanticism, to secularism, to notions of selfhood, David’s book was an incredible journey into the underlying structure of Western Buddhism itself, revealing how this often described ancient wisdom tradition was actually in great part the creation of Westerners. We touch on the book and discuss how he views it today and its influence, but most of our conversation is about work he has written since then, editing and making contributions to books including Meditation, Buddhism and Science from 2017 and Buddhism in the Modern World from 2012, and we touch on his first book, Empty Vision: Metaphor and Visionary Imagery in Mahayana Buddhism from 2002. David has an interest in the relationship between the humanities and science and how this affects Buddhism and is interested in maintaining an important role for the humanities in understanding Buddhism at a time when science has become fetishised and pushed to the forefront as a validating force for an idealised form of Buddhism and we talk about this in some detail. We also talk about phenomenology, Western philosophy, developments in contemporary Buddhism, and of course the issues of modernity and post-modern thought and its potential impact on the current Buddhist landscape. I was still rather ill when interviewing David so if you hear my voice stammering and weak, this is the reason why. I don’t think it gets in the way of the interview but it was strange to hear myself with an almost alien voice, panting, and unfortunately, sounding ready for the hospital. In two weeks the final part of this series will be available with Ann Gleig, a fellow Brit working in Florida, in which we explore her book American Dharma: Buddhism beyond Modernity, and it would be interesting to get some feedback on what you all think about all this. We are doing this for your benefit after all. Links O'Connell Coaching: https://oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: https://posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: https://twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha Music by Stray Dogg from their fresh new album 'Look at the Moon' https://straydogg.bandcamp.com/

Date: Saturday, February 23, 9am-1pm, at Culture Works in Philadelphia Cost: Pay what you can, upwards to $90. For more than a decade, movement-based scholar AK Thompson has worked with Benjamin to weigh in on the key debates of our crisis-filled era. From engagements with pop culture’s latent promise to critiques of the cherished certainties that guide movement struggles, he has foregrounded the operational value of Benjamin’s insights. In Premonitions: Selected Essays on the Culture of Revolt (2018), Thompson reveals how we might do things with Benjamin today. https://inciteseminars.com/the-culture-of-revolt/

“All Buddhism is Cultural Buddhism.” Scott Mitchell is the Rev. Yoshitaka Tamai Professor of Jodo Shinshu Buddhist Studies at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley and the author of "Buddhism in America: Global Religion, Local Context"(2016). His research interests include Buddhism in Western contexts, Buddhist modernity, Pure Land Buddhism, translocal religions, ritual studies, and media studies. Scott and I had a lively conversation and covered a variety of topics including; what are the live issues in American Buddhism right now, what is the relationship between America, Europe and the rest of the world in terms of innovation in Buddhism, S. N. Goenka & the practice of meditation in Asia, the rise of China and its potential influence on global Buddhism, the lingering problem of a single/true Buddhism, post-modernism & Buddhism, heritage Buddhisms and decolonisation. This is the first episode in a three-part series on Buddhist Modernism, Post-Modernism and what comes after. Links O'Connell Coaching: https://oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: https://posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha Music by Stray Dogg from their fresh new album 'Look at the Moon' straydogg.bandcamp.com/

Does western philosophy lack imagination when thinking about rebirth and reincarnation? What would Wittgenstein say? This episode features Dr Mickel Burley, a philosopher of religion from Leeds university in the UK. He wrote a fascinating book called Rebirth and the Stream of Life, which inspired me to have him on. He’s a big fan of Ludwig Wittgenstein too and we get to talking about a man who is widely considered the greatest philosopher of the 20th century as well as his thought and its uses for thinking about spirituality, Buddhism, rebirth and more. We also bridge the episode to our earlier discussion of karma and rebirth with Jayarava. Mick has also written on cannibalism, animal sacrifice, Hatha-Yoga, and the lack of imagination in philosophy surrounding rebirth and reincarnation. We manage to discuss philosophy East & West too. Many of Mick’s article are freely available and curiously titled so check out his university page for further links; https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/philosophy/staff/30/dr-mikel-burley Links O'Connell Coaching: https://oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: https://posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha Music by Stray Dogg from their fresh new album 'Look at the Moon' https://straydogg.bandcamp.com/

Hey, it’s 2019 and we’re off to a bang with two new episodes! The first one is quite the experiment with our first guest host filling in for the mysterious, ephemeral stranger that is Mr Stuart Baldwin. Our first intrepid visitor is Gavin McCloskey from Northern Ireland has been China based for quite some time. He is his own man of course, and he brought some fine questions along for us to discuss. I’m afraid I did most of the talking, but Gavin had some great contributions to make and it was good having him on. Our conversation touches primarily on practice and some of my more far out ideas emerge. You can hear Gavin’s views on Goenka and Mahasi Sayadaw and his experience of retreats with those lineages. We talk about innovation in practice, enlightenment, reincarnation, and much more. See what you think and let us know how it goes in this experimental conversation. Feedback would be appreciated! Links O'Connell Coaching: https://oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: https://posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha Music by Stray Dogg from their fresh new album 'Look at the Moon' https://straydogg.bandcamp.com/

Date: Saturday, January 19, 9am-1pm Cost: Pay what you can: Suggested amount: $90 Facilitator: Joshua Ramey is a writer, teacher, and activist who studies political economy and anti-capitalist political theory. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Villanova University (2006) and is currently Visiting Assistant Professor in the Interdisciplinary Concentration in Peace, Justice, and Human Rights at Haverford College. He is the author of The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and Spiritual Ordeal and Politics of Divination: Neoliberal Endgame and the Religion of Contingency. What is money? Money functions as a unit of account, a medium of exchange, and a store of value, but this is what money does, not what money is. There is a very deep paradox at the heart of money, because money is not itself, but what it represents. Money is the representation of social agreements—agreements about who is obliged to whom, about what is more or less valuable, about what can be changed or altered in the past and the future, and about what must stay the same over time. Far from being a simple thing, money is metaphysical: social, political, abstract, and weird. Although economists tend to think of money only as a “veil” that covers the true reality of exchange relationships, money actually has the power to control which exchanges and which economic activity take place, at all, because money is essentially a form of credit, an expression of approval and judgment of affirmation by some human beings in favor of the activities of others. However, most of us (and most economists) are either confused about or in denial of the fact that money is not a commodity, but a form of credit that is issued into existence almost entirely by private bank loans. And new money is created not on the basis of pre-existing savings or assets, but on the basis of demand for credit and willingness of bankers to supply it. This means that the private banking system has enormous power over not just their own investments, but over the amount and kind of credit available to the entire economy, whose priorities are wildly different from that of the speculative classes. This seminar will introduce the history of money and the formation of the modern monetary system based on private financing. It will then look at the contemporary politics of debt, austerity, and class warfare in order to explore possibilities for concrete struggle against the class power of bankers and megafinance. https://inciteseminars.com/money-and-metaphysics/ Links O'Connell Coaching: oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Stanford University in 2006 and is tenured at Williams College in their Religious Studies Department. He has three primary research areas: Japanese Religions, European Intellectual History, and Theory more broadly. He has been working to articulate new research models for Religious Studies in the wake of the collapse of poststructuralism as a guiding ethos in the Humanities. Jason and I discuss his book 'The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences' from 2017 as well as his text on inventing religion in Japan. We delve into the role of enchantment and the myth of disenchantment, the role of enchantment in science and the fascinating indulgences of many of the great scientific thinkers in spiritualism and enchanted beliefs. We cover East & West philosophy, The Kyoto School, Metamodernism, and more. Our conversation also joins up nicely with previous guests and the desire to give emergence to something new after post-modernism and modernism, and for Buddhists, something beyond the cultural infiltration of both in contemporary western Buddhism. Links O'Connell Coaching: oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha Episode Links Jason's university page: https://religion.williams.edu/faculty/jason-josephson Intelligence Squared podcast with John Gray: https://soundcloud.com/intelligence2/adam-phillips-and-john-gray John Gray's Straw Dogs: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374270933 Music https://robinmitchell.bandcamp.com/

Dale S. Wright is distinguished Professor of Religion at Occidental College in Los Angeles. He is author of The Six Perfections: Buddhism & the Cultivation of Character, and Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism. He is also coeditor with Steven Heine of The Koan: Text and Context in Zen Buddhism, The Zen Canon: Textual Foundations of Zen Buddhism, Zen Classics: Formative Texts in the History of Zen Buddhism, and Zen Ritual: Studies of Zen Buddhist Theory in Practice. More importantly for our podcast, Dale is author of 'What is Buddhist Enlightenment?' A text that forms the basis for a good chunk of our conversation. We explore the notion of enlightenment in Buddhism and in particular the pluralism of definitions, a secular reframing of the thing, how western philosophy challenges Buddhist notions of enlightenment, myth and myths that are encased in different interpretations of enlightenment. As with so many of our podcast conversations, this one heads off into places unknown, exploring questions, reflections, intuitions and interesting ground that we hope you will find as stimulating as we did. Links O'Connell Coaching: https://oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: https://posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha Music Ask Her Out: https://askherout.bandcamp.com/releases

Our year long jaunt through the world of academic engagement with Buddhism continues. In this episode of the Imperfect Buddha Podcast, we talk to William Edelglass, professor of Philosophy, Environmental Studies, and Buddhist Studies at Marlboro College. William has been a teacher in a variety of settings, including a federal prison in New York, a Tibetan refugee settlement in Nepal, and for many years as a wilderness guide at Outward Bound. Before going to Marlboro, William taught Western philosophy at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics, Dharamsala, India, to Tibetan monks, and Buddhist philosophy to American college students on a Tibetan studies program. William also teaches a range of fascinating courses at Barre Centre for Buddhist Studies. William and I cover quite a bit of ground in our 2-hour long conversation spanning Buddhism, Philosophy, and our current political climate. Here are just some of the questions we tackled; What stand out lessons have each phase of your professional life taught you? Which lessons continue to influence the way you work and think about what drives you? What philosophical challenges do the different Buddhisms present to Western Philosophical thought? What philosophical challenges does Western Philosophy present to Buddhist thought? How do you think Western practitioners might take a more critical and explorative approach to Buddhist thought? What are we to do with the challenges of nihilism as practitioners? What are we to make of mysticism? How can we renew philosophical thought for practitioners? Why is Shantideva such an important figure for you and what challenges do his work and thought raise? Why is Levinas an important figure for you what challenges do his work and thought raise for Buddhism? You can find out more about William’s work at the following site: https://www.marlboro.edu/academics/undergraduate/faculty#edelglass_william Music for this episode comes from George Glew and is called Higher. Listen to more of his music at https://soundcloud.com/georgeglew Links O'Connell Coaching: https://oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: https://posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

What is attention? Where are the boundaries between 'my' individual attention and that of those around me? Whose paying attention to what? And, what are the consequences of how attention is manipulated and manufactured by the media and by ideology? Yves Citton explores these questions and many more on the podcast today with special attention paid to his fantastic book "The Ecology of Attention" which analyses attention-related phenomena emergent at a number of levels from the individual to the social arguing throughout that there are high stakes for how we understand and work with these phenomena: for teaching, performance, the environment, and freedom itself. Yves Citton is professor of Literature and Media at the Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint Denis and executive director of the Ecole Universitaire de Recheche ArTeC. He taught for 13 years at the Université Grenoble Alpes and for 12 years in the department of French and Italian of the University of Pittsburgh, PA. He got his PhD from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and has been invited Professor at New York University, Harvard and Sciences-Po Paris. Music for these episodes is provided by the Bristol-based artist Something Anorak. Check out his work on the usual sites including Bandcamp. Links O'Connell Coaching: oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

This week, you lucky listeners get two episodes for the price of one! Unusually for the podcast, we recorded two episodes back-to-back in just two days and for this reason they are kin, intimately connected, and shall go forth into the world as such. Each one shares the same intro, but don’t panic, it’s relatively short. Both conversations were less structured than usual. I did have questions, but allowed both conversations more space to evolve and flow, and there may even be a bit of rambling on both sides from time to time, but never enough to bore: We are exploring new creative spaces after all! Our two guests are at opposite ends of the career spectrum and their interests and concerns mirror generational shifts towards contemplative practices. Zachery Walsh is finishing up a Ph.D. programme, while Robert Forman has retired from teaching Religious Studies at University. Robert Foreman isn’t a typical guess for the podcast. Much of our work has been critical of Western spirituality and explorative of more philosophically leaning themes and aimed towards constructing divergent ways of imagining Buddhism, spirituality, contemplation, and notions of path tradition and outcomes. Robert spent much of his career exploring themes that have come up on our podcast episodes uniting his spiritual bent with academic writing on topics including mysticism non-duality pure consciousness and even ending up in a debate with Stephen T. Katz on whether mystical experience is socially constructed, or an innate universal capacity. Robert is a long-term practitioner of TM, that’s transcendental meditation, and we start off our discussion by talking about this controversial practice. We get into a range of topics covering his interests and non-academic writings including his recent “Enlightenment ain’t what it’s cracked up to be.” I do my best to lead the conversation towards more academic topics, but I’m only partially successful. I hope that the attempts to do so make for an interesting conversation all the same, and it must be said that Robert is game throughout our chat and generous with his time. Either way, our conversation remains loosely connected to the academic theme we have this year. My conversation with Zack Walsh was quite different, but not necessarily devoid of the personal or traces of Mystical enquiry, although perhaps he or I would use slightly different language to refer to such. Zach is currently working in the Institute for advanced Sustainability Studies in Germany exploring the relationship between contemplative practices and ecology. He has written some great work that resonates with many of my own concerns, insightful critiques of mindfulness and meditation culture using a variety of lenses that deserve wider attention, and has more recently developed what he calls the Contemplative Commons, which becomes a central topic of our discussion. We also look at the interplay of social justice, activism and contemplative practices, future directions for the development of spirituality firmly grounded in the imminent world, Metamodernism, and transcendence, and we even get into discussing modern day China, and there is film reference to boot. Enjoy this tandem cycle through different lives and minds as the Imperfect Buddha Podcast continues its journey onwards through destinations unknown. Music for these episodes is provided by the Bristol-based artist Hundred Strong, this time in collaboration with Cali Phoenix, a singer from Scotland. Check out her work on the usual sites including Bandcamp and her latest album Voices. Links O'Connell Coaching: oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

This week, you lucky listeners get two episodes for the price of one! Unusually for the podcast, we recorded two episodes back-to-back in just two days and for this reason they are kin, intimately connected, and shall go forth into the world as such. Each one shares the same intro, but don’t panic, it’s relatively short. Both conversations were less structured than usual. I did have questions, but allowed both conversations more space to evolve and flow, and there may even be a bit of rambling on both sides from time to time, but never enough to bore: We are exploring new creative spaces after all! Our two guests are at opposite ends of the career spectrum and their interests and concerns mirror generational shifts towards contemplative practices. Zachery Walsh is finishing up a Ph.D. programme, while Robert Forman has retired from teaching Religious Studies at University. Robert Foreman isn’t a typical guess for the podcast. Much of our work has been critical of Western spirituality and explorative of more philosophically leaning themes and aimed towards constructing divergent ways of imagining Buddhism, spirituality, contemplation, and notions of path tradition and outcomes. Robert spent much of his career exploring themes that have come up on our podcast episodes uniting his spiritual bent with academic writing on topics including mysticism non-duality pure consciousness and even ending up in a debate with Stephen T. Katz on whether mystical experience is socially constructed, or an innate universal capacity. Robert is a long-term practitioner of TM, that’s transcendental meditation, and we start off our discussion by talking about this controversial practice. We get into a range of topics covering his interests and non-academic writings including his recent “Enlightenment ain’t what it’s cracked up to be.” I do my best to lead the conversation towards more academic topics, but I’m only partially successful. I hope that the attempts to do so make for an interesting conversation all the same, and it must be said that Robert is game throughout our chat and generous with his time. Either way, our conversation remains loosely connected to the academic theme we have this year. My conversation with Zack Walsh was quite different, but not necessarily devoid of the personal or traces of Mystical enquiry, although perhaps he or I would use slightly different language to refer to such. Zach is currently working in the Institute for advanced Sustainability Studies in Germany exploring the relationship between contemplative practices and ecology. He has written some great work that resonates with many of my own concerns, insightful critiques of mindfulness and meditation culture using a variety of lenses that deserve wider attention, and has more recently developed what he calls the Contemplative Commons, which becomes a central topic of our discussion. We also look at the interplay of social justice, activism and contemplative practices, future directions for the development of spirituality firmly grounded in the imminent world, Metamodernism, and transcendence, and we even get into discussing modern day China, and there is film reference to boot. Enjoy this tandem cycle through different lives and minds as the Imperfect Buddha Podcast continues its journey onwards through destinations unknown. Music for these episodes is provided by the Bristol-based artist Hundred Strong, this time in collaboration with Cali Phoenix, a singer from Scotland. Check out her work on the usual sites including Bandcamp and her latest album Voices. Full inks and bios for each guest can be found at posttraditionalbuddhism.com Links O'Connell Coaching: oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

Our second podcast episode for the week is for Incite Seminars with regular guest Glenn Wallis. As per usual, our conversation takes many interesting and creative turns, and is longer than the usual Incite seminar podcasts. We discuss the topics of Unlearning, education versus learning, and introducing radical ideas into Dharma halls, as well as much more. As indicated in the introduction to this podcast, Glenn will be returning soon for a regular podcast discussion of his brand-new book A Critique of Western Buddhism, out now for Bloomsbury. For those interested in engaging with Glenn directly, his Unlearning Seminar takes place in Philadelphia September 29th and is a must for educators looking to think about educating differently. Click on the link to find out more: Incite Seminars: Unlearning & Radical Education https://inciteseminars.com/unlearning-radical-education-theory/ Links O'Connell Coaching: oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha

This week regular listeners to the podcast will be fortunate enough to get two episodes in a single week. The first will be with Charles S. Prebish, a figure well known in Buddhist studies. Charles has written classic volumes in Buddhist studies such as Luminous Passage: the practice and study of Buddhism in America and masses of articles. He was also a pioneer in the establishment of the study of Western Buddhism. He co-founded the Journal of Buddhist Ethics and the Routledge, Critical Studies in Buddhism series, and he is emeritus professor at both Utah State University and Pennsylvania State University. In the podcast Charles talks about his own personal relationship with Buddhist practice and the field of Buddhist studies, how it has developed since its inception to today, the current scandals in Buddhist communities, his experience with a number of prominent Buddhist teachers including Chogyam Trungpa, and some potentially controversial thoughts about the future of this academic field. It seemed appropriate to have Charles on as the first guest as his view of the field is very long and very wide and this serves as a great introduction for what is to come. Links O'Connell Coaching: https://oconnellcoaching.com Post-Traditional Buddhism: https://posttraditionalbuddhism.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/imperfectbuddha Twitter: twitter.com/Imperfectbuddha