The Imperfect Buddha Podcast

Mar 31 2024 592

The Imperfect Buddha Podcast artwork

The Imperfect Buddha podcast has been addressing anti-intellectualism and ideological capture in western Buddhism and spirituality more broadly since its inception. It provides a space for dynamic conversations designed to bring out what is so often hidden and so often despised by critics and intellectuals engaging with contemporary forms of practice. Matthew O’Connell hosts the Imperfect Buddha podcast and writes at The Imperfect Buddha site. Email: [email protected]. Twitter: @imperfectbuddha. Facebook: @imperfectbuddha. Original street art Buddha image by Bristol's Banksy.

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117 Building the Future Buddha: A Discussion with Jundho Cohen

Mar 31 2024 59 mins

Jundo Cohen is a Zen Buddhist teacher and founder of Treeleaf Zendo, a digital Zen community with members in over 50 countries. He writes on the intersection of Buddhism, ethics, science, and the future of the planet. He resides in Tsukuba, Japan’s “Science City”. He is the author of The Zen Master’s Dance: A Guide to Understanding Dogen and Who You Are in the Universe (Wis

116 Making Sense of Yogacara with William Waldron

Mar 23 2024 87 mins

Professor William Waldron teaches courses on the South Asian religious traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism, Tibetan religion and history, comparative psychologies and philosophies of mind, and theory and method in the study of religion at Middlebury College. His publications focus on the Yogacara school of Indian Buddhism and its dialogue with modern thought. He is the author of Ma

115 Christian Coseru on Perceiving Reality

Jan 08 2024 78 mins

What does it mean to perceive and just how capable are we of perceiving reality? This is a core question in the work of Christian Coseru, who is today’s guest. He is the Lightsey Humanities chair and Professor of Philosophy at the College of Charleston. Christian works in the fields of philosophy of mind, phenomenology, and cross-cultural philosophy, especially Indian and Buddhis

114 David McMahan on Rethinking Meditation

Dec 04 2023 72 mins

If anything, the Imperfect Buddha Podcast has been a rallying cry for the disruption of the myths that abound in the world of Buddhism and meditation. David L. McMahan professor of religion at Franklin and Marshall College, has been something of a crusader himself, writing a much needed correction to many of the myths in western adoption of Buddhism in his seminal text, The Makings

113 A.I. and Practice with Stuart Baldwin

Nov 10 2023 134 mins

The technological revolution we are facing today is artificial intelligence. At least this is what we are told. Those doing the telling include tech experts such as Elon Musk, linguist Noam Chomsky, as well as philosophers, politicians and intellectuals of all stripes. What are to make of all this and how are we to manage a world experiencing such rapid change as practitioners? We

112 Wake up! (Part 3) An Antidote to Stupidity in Three Parts

Nov 02 2023 51 mins

Wake up! Antidote to stupidity in three parts. This is part 3. What follows is a three-part series on waking up to non-buddhism as an antidote to stupidity. This is an ambitious project designed to look at a curriculum of items that might be useful to contemporary Buddhist practitioners in order to wake up from some of the traps that have been diagnosed by non-buddhism over the las

111 Wake up! (Part 2) An Antidote to Stupidity in Three Parts

Oct 26 2023 28 mins

Wake up! Antidote to stupidity in three parts. This is part 2. What follows is a three-part series on waking up to non-buddhism as an antidote to stupidity. This is an ambitious project designed to look at a curriculum of items that might be useful to contemporary Buddhist practitioners in order to wake up from some of the traps that have been diagnosed by non-buddhism over the las

110 Wake up! (Part 1) An Antidote to Stupidity in Three Parts

Oct 19 2023 26 mins

Wake up! Antidote to stupidity in three parts. This is part 1. What follows is a three-part series on waking up to non-buddhism as an antidote to stupidity. This is an ambitious project designed to look at a curriculum of items that might be useful to contemporary Buddhist practitioners in order to wake up from some of the traps that have been diagnosed by non-buddhism over the las

109 Meditating Three Minutes a Day: A Conversation with Richard Dixey

Aug 22 2023 63 mins

After a month or two of absence, the podcast returns for a new season, beginning with an unexpectedly wide ranging conversation with Dr. Richard Dixey. Richard holds a Ph.D. from London University, an M.A. with distinction in the history and philosophy of science from London University, and a B.A. Hons from Oxford. He has been a student of Buddhism since 1972 and has travelled exte

108 Curtis White on Buddhism and Transcendence

May 29 2023 53 mins

Acclaimed cultural critic Curtis White examines current fissures in Western Buddhism and argues against the growth of scientific and corporate dharma, particularly in the Secular Buddhist movement. Most of his career has been spent writing experimental fiction, but he turned to writing books of social criticism, the latest of which is Transcendent, Art and Dharma in a Time of Colla