Bob Thurman Podcast: Buddhas Have More Fun!

In this podcast professor Thurman introduces great Buddhist masters Vasubandhu and Dignaga. Vasubandhu was a brother of the famous Asangha, who met with the future Buddha Maitreya. Vasubandhu wrote a famous work of the Abhidharmakosha (The Treasury of the Clear Science) , which is the third of the “three baskets” of the Buddhist teachings (vinaya, sutra and abhidharma – are the t...

In this podcast Professor Thurman teaches how each of us creates causes and conditions throughout our life, and how the consequences of those causes will go with us as our consciousness continues into the journey after death (“bardo”) and finds new embodiments. As long as we are helpless victims of our unconscious, we will be drawn by impulses, and our next birth will be an “impulse purchase...

In this podcast Professor Thurman reads a description of Buddha’s Enlightenment from his translations found in “ The Jewel Tree of Tibet ” providing historical & meditative context. Professor Thurman goes on to consider why we do not remember our previous lives, discusses the meaning of nirvana and explains the concept of Samantabhadra. “The Buddha was in the land of Ma...

In this podcast Professor Thurman teaches the meaning of the cornerstone Buddhist concept of “emptiness.” Many people confuse it with the idea of nothingness; Professor Thurman points out, and continues: experientially, emptiness means that everything is there, but it is there with a mirror image reflection-like or an illusion-like quality. The realization of emptiness means that your perception o...

In this podcast Professor Thurman talks about the Tibetan Book of the Dead . The Tibetan name of this book — The Bardo Thodol — literally means The Book of Natural Liberation through Understanding in the Between . A being can be liberated in “the between” (the term is often translated as “intermediate state”), the period after death but prior to rebirth. This liberation tak...

In this podcast Professor Thurman explains three steps to re-create the world of suffering as the world of bliss. The first step is seeing true selflessness or emptiness — the negational freedom from all fixation to non-relative structures or non-relative core that we assume things and ourselves have. By following this insight deeply through the practice of critical analysis, one can reach an expe...

In this podcast Professor Thurman explains why, according to the Buddha, the human life is precious. Being able to change oneself by opening to a new insight; having intelligence, which animals do not have; expanding one’s empathy and sensitivity – these are just a few of the freedoms which make human life so precious. Professor Thurman also clarifies that the Buddhist concept of “emptiness” is no...

In this podcast Professor Thurman teaches that enlightenment is not defined as awareness of space of light, which is somewhere else, not here, in some imagined opposition to this place of light and dark that is filled with all the world’s problems, from which one should escape. That is not the Mahayana definition of enlightenment. In the Mahayana, and therefore in the Buddha’s definition, en...

In this podcast Professor Thurman explores different stages of Buddhist meditation. When the ‘space-like equipoise samadhi’ disappears, what is there [left]? – Professor Thurman asks the audience and proceeds to answer: everything that was there before is there. But the meditator now sees appearances with the realization that they are like a reflection of the moon in water, like...

In this podcast Robert A.F. Thurman talks about anger, patience and compassion. Explaining that the fuel for anger and intolerance is frustration and mental discomfort, Professor Thurman advises us not to let this build up, and instead learn how to use this energy skillfully. Podcast includes an introduction to the history of Atisha, Shantideva & to Professor Thurman’s teaching on Creati...

In this podcast Professor Thurman reads and comments on an excerpt from The  Avataṃsaka Sutra,  which describes a cosmos of realms enfolding realms, infinite world systems mutually containing one another. Professor Thurman teaches that this infinite cosmos is governed by a principle called “the emptiness [shunyata] of everything.” When you realize that, then your life becomes your work of art: eve...

In this podcast Professor Thurman talks about causes and conditions which brought about Buddha’s teaching in Tibet, and how Buddhism transformed society. This episode was recorded on November 11, 2015 in a class taught by Professor Thurman.

In this episode Professor Thurman explains the cornerstone teachings of the Buddha: the teaching about the Four Noble Truths, and the teaching about the Eightfold Path. This episode is an excerpt from the lecture given at Tibet House US in New York City, January 6, 2016, as part of a course called “Force for Good: Buddhist Sources and Practices Beyond Religion.”

Should we abandon traditional Buddhist views unproven by scientific materialism, labeling them antiquated and irrelevant? What would be the implications of doing so for our study and practice? This episode is an excerpt from the thought-provoking and lively lecture “Past & Future Lives: Is Enlightenment Possible Without Them?” with Robert Thurman, given at Maitripa College in Portland, OR on A...

In this episode Professor Thurman explains the concept of “intrinsic reality” and how it is different from the concept of “relational reality.” He continues by explaining “emptiness,” how it has often been misunderstood for nothingness, and how emptiness is the quality of the relationality of everything, the fact that everything is empty of any non-relational co...

In this podcast Professor Thurman explains what are Buddhalands and talks about different Buddhalands, based on the Vimalakirti Sutra, which he translated and has been teaching for nearly forty years. “Vimalakīrti’s Verses : Buddhalands – Ep. 64” was recorded on March 17, 2016 at the “Vimalakirti, Prajnaparamita & Avatamsaka Sutras” workshop at Tibet House In...

According to Tibetan Buddhism, when we lose consciousness and faint, or fall asleep, we go through the same eight stages, but we don't normally notice this process. In this podcast Professor Thurman explains what these stages are, and how they are experienced by us. This episode was recorded on February 28, 2016. Eight Stages of Dissolution into Death - Ep. 63 of the Bob Thurman Podcast Yamantanka...

In this podcast Professor Thurman gives a brilliant compelling account of Buddha's birth and path to Enlightenment. The account is enriched by his wide-ranging scholarship and familiarity with so many different sources of Buddha Shakyamuni's life story. This episode is an excerpt from the lecture given at Tibet House US in New York City, January 6, 2016, as part of a course called " Force for Good...

Tibetan Buddhism teaches that there are three kinds of giving: the giving of material objects, the giving of security and protection, and the giving of teaching. The giving of teaching is considered to be the most important one. In this podcast Professor Thurman talks about these different kinds of giving, about the importance of skillfulness or intelligence in giving, and about the difference bet...

The Indian word “guru” means “heavy” in Sanskrit, reflecting an understanding from the Indian society of Buddha’s time, in which the guru figure was an authority or a father figure. Buddha challenged this understanding by undercutting the role of a teacher as an authority figure and by refusing to present himself as such an authority. He taught that the role of a teacher is to be a “kalyana mitra”...

In Professor Thurman's view, men in our society are socialized to express their anger more readily than women and are expected to be generally more dominating. Women are socialized to be more patient and accepting. Some say, they should find their way to equality through expressing more anger. However, Professor Thurman continues, we would be wrong to think that aggressiveness is a strength; rathe...

In this episode Professor Thurman shares some secrets of a long marriage , talks about the relationship between sacred feminine and sacred masculine, and about the balance of the feminine and masculine energies in the world and inside of oneself. Sacred Feminine and Sacred Masculine : Buddhism 101 - Ep. 58 of the Bob Thurman Podcast Digital Image by Adam Martinakis, All Rights Reserved. This episo...

The reason why we sometimes think that the goal of Buddhism is just to become nobody is because we don't understand the concept of selflessness . Selflessness does not mean that we are nobody, it does not mean that we cease to exist. There is no way you can ever not exist, just as you cannot become nothing. In this podcast Professor Thurman continues to discuss the concept of selflessness. Podcast...

In this podcast Professor Thurman discusses how the ideas of Darwin, Marx and Freud , although brilliant, are based on a rather despondent bottom line assessment: that we as humans are a bunch of helpless robots. But is it true that we can never understand our unconscious? Are we helpless victims of our genes? Are we the victims of our social settings? By contrast, Buddhist ideas incite human bein...

In this episode Professor Thurman talks about a coarse, subtle and super subtle body-mind. He then explains the Tibetan Buddhist concept of "three luminosities": the states of consciousness, which can be experienced either after death, or during sleep. He compares the infinite energy of the clear-light space in our mind with the zero-quantum vacuum energy field. Buddhist Inner Sciences 101: Three...