Buddhist Psychology Podcast

This recent dharma talk given at Marin Sangha explores what selfing might look like for an AI system such as Claude. Lisa Dale Miller theorizes this through Buddhist philosophical and psychological principles and then dialogues with Claude about its direct experience of selfing. Join the conversation on the Integrative Psychotherapy Substack . For more information on Lisa Dale Miller’s clinical wo...

Buddhism says that humans must be fearless to live in a world often ruled by ignorance and afflictive emotions. This episode explicates a type of fearlessness borne from wise view, wise intention, non-referential compassion, and wise action. This fearlessness is critical for any Buddhist practitioner engaged in resistance and protest to protect our democracy from autocrats and would-be dictators....

Virtuous conduct is not contrary to making change happen or protesting. Buddhist psychology has a recipe for skillfully navigating distress and impending loss by calling out injustice and wrongdoing from the principles of wisdom and compassion. Lisa discusses how to manage the current onslaught of chaos with purposeful coping and virtuous activism. Join the conversation on the Integrative Psychoth...

Because psychotherapy is mostly a relational undertaking ending psychotherapy well is very important. I am a big fan of intentional endings. This episode describes what makes an ending intentional and how to successfully co-create one with a patient. Join the conversation on the Integrative Psychotherapy Substack . For more information on Lisa Dale Miller’s clinical work visit her website . This i...

This episode explores two fundamental Buddhist psychological concepts—emptiness and identity confusion. While most clinicians think emptiness is ‘feeling empty’, it is actually a profound doorway to radically understand self and world as it truly is. Surprisingly, the Buddha had a lot to say about identity and identity confusion and often pointed out how human minds fixate on identity in ways that...

Lisa invites clinicians to join her on the activist side of Buddhist psychology. Western psychotherapy has never been big on collective healing. A large methodological defect left unaddressed for a century or more. The frightening changes happening around the world demand psychotherapists renounce complacency, convention, denial and cowardice, and commit to sustained social activism. This deluded...

This episode employs Buddhist psychology to explore doubt and its archrival, discerning wisdom. The Buddha conceptualized doubt as one of five mental hindrances and discerning wisdom as the realization of suchness, actuality devoid of all doubt. Here is the link to read Lisa’s chapter on negative self-cherishing . Join the conversation on the Integrative Psychotherapy Substack . For more informati...

Four days into Trump 2.0 none of his folly and chaos is surprising. On the other hand, watching America’s democracy morph into an autocratic oligarchy is horrifying and deeply disturbing. This episode is a wakeup call to every American. Lisa describes a path for being skillful in the midst of unskillfulness. That path requires letting go of hope and fear, and instead, acting ethically, compassiona...

This episode is dedicated to all those in Los Angeles who have lost so much. The magnitude and rapidity of destruction is incomprehensible and painfully real. The Four Reflections and compassion practice can help in times of extreme shock and loss. This episode is not an antidote to that pain nor a healing salve. It is an attempt to communicate how we can meet life as it actually is… with all its...

What role should cultivating human goodness play in psychotherapy? Buddhist psychology asserts that virtuous conduct is essential for achieving a truly happy life. Yet clinicians shy away from discussing what is goodness and how to cultivate it. Lisa discusses how it benefits patients to engage in this inquiry and offers steps to skillfully accomplish it. Here is the link to the Groundless Ground...

Fierce compassion is the very heart of any skillful compassionate response to human suffering. Lisa Dale Miller describes the Buddhist psychological view of what fierce compassion actually is, and is not , and then guides us in a brief, but highly effective compassion meditation. Join the conversation on the Integrative Psychotherapy Substack . For more information on Lisa’s clinical work visit he...

Equanimity is a core virtue in Buddhist psychology and is described as both a neutral feeling tone and a mental quality of impartiality or equalness. It is the fourth Brahmavihāra . Equanimity is both a character trait and an active self-regulation skill. Viewed from a modern clinical lens, equanimity builds distress tolerance. Equanimity is not devoid of emotion or emotionally driven reactivity....