The Backyard Buddhist Podcast

I am Ronn Pawo McLane and this is the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  You won’t often find me watching a movie or television show that has uncomfortable chaos or violence.  First it just feels disruptive to my experience and second, I have a belief that the experience of watching shows like this lodge th...

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane.  Regret is a powerful obstacle when we are trying to balance our human experience and relieve suffering. Regret for our own behaviors and resentment associated with trauma caused by others or as a result of events that happened to us. ...

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane.  This week on the Backyard Buddhist Podcast we are talking about cultivating wisdom and compassion through the tools of insight.  We have so much to learn and understand but it always begins with understanding ourselves and our human/s...

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane The great Yogi Milarepa sang: “My Body is the holy mandala itself wherein resides the Buddhas of all times.  With their blessings I and freed from all needs and attachments.  By day and night, I offer them up; Happy am I to do without m...

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane One of my teachers reminded me that the pure light of awareness sanctifies everything.  What it means to me is that when I shine the spotlight of awareness on what is causing my suffering, discomfort, and dissatisfaction then I can trul...

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane and I am here in the studio alone today Danny has the day off.  Today I wanted to talk about what this practice and endeavor is all about.  For me I arrived to a Buddhist practice by accident.  I wasn't looking for it specifically but f...

We are happy to publish our 20th episode of the Backyard Buddhist Podcast.  We are so happy to have all of our loyal listeners as well as our newest friends joining us.  Usually Pawo settles on the topic for the day and Dan doesn't have any idea what we are going to talk about until the podcast begins. Today we are flipping the script and Danny is asking Pawo all the questions.  Join in the discus...

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane and I am here with my good buddy Danny Hobart.  Today we are talking about the vast view of consciousness and awareness.  This journey to awakening dawns many realizations.  First is consciousness and what it actually is, and then throu...

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane and I am here with my good buddy Danny Hobart.  Today we are talking about Natural Awakening.    Your own spiritual compass starts with awakened awareness.  With the lens of that awareness we see the natural state of consciousness as un...

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane and I am here with my good buddy Danny Hobart.  Today we are talking about what it means to go beyond. Our natural state is beyond the dichotomies of like and dislike.  Far beyond frustration, anger, grief, and separateness.   The maste...

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane and I am here with my good buddy Danny Hobart.  Today we are contemplating non-duality and what it means for our practical understanding.   Duality can be a tricky business to understand.  In the religious sense this can be the dualisti...

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane and I am here with my good buddy Danny Hobart.  Today we are talking about what is behind the big golden door of enlightenment. Simple awakened Awareness is the jeweled key to the big golden door of enlightenment. But What is beyond is...

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane and I am here with my good buddy Danny Hobart.  Today we are talking about how we continually work at the practice of enlightened and awakened awareness both on and off the cushion. It is important to remind ourselves that the bulk of o...

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane and I am here with my good buddy Danny Hobart.  Today we are talking about how Enlightenment 101 – How to find your enlightened, interconnected self.  The jeweled key to the golden door is awakened awareness but it is behind the door th...

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane and I am here with my good buddy Danny Hobart.  Today we are talking about the fourth paramita, Joyful and enthusiastic Effort.  In its most positive sense, effort (which we may think of as perseverance or commitment) is the delight you...

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane and I am here with my good buddy Danny Hobart.  Today we are getting right to the heart of our practice and talking about how to be enlightened and why we aren’t already.   The wise master and celebrity drag queen Ru Paul says it best:...

Welcome to the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I am Ronn Pawo McLane and I am here with my good buddy and path-mate Danny Hobart.  Today we are breaking down the Wisdom Path of Awakening.   In Lama Surya Das’ New Millennium Prayer he says “May all beings everywhere, with whom we are inseparably interconn...

Let’s face it, stress is not new to our lives, but this year has produced a few curve balls that are simply unusual.  Isolation for some and too much togetherness for others.  Finding and keeping a new rhythm that is healthy and fulfilling can be a daily challenge.  Today on the Backyard Buddhist we are talking about how to meditate and practice when things suck!  Remember that meditation practice...

Today on the Backyard Buddhist were talking about cultivating compassion and love for those who oppose us. Kindness and compassion for those who seem to battle against what we feel is the “right” way of being is one of the biggest challenges in our daily experience.  Just turn on the news and it isn’t hard to find someone behaving in a manner that just grates against the grain of our own beliefs o...

Today on the Backyard Buddhist were talking about your karma.  Your Karma is a Bitch! Why do all these bad things happen?  Shouldn’t all the good in the world counteract all the bad?  What happened to create all this chaos? In our efforts to liberate ourselves from suffering we must address the law of cause and effect.  Every action and inaction has an effect as every heartbeat moves blood and eve...

Herd, mob or pack mentality describes how people can be influenced by their peers to adopt certain behaviors on a largely emotional, rather than rational, basis. Today on The Backyard Buddhist Podcast Ronn Pawo McLane and Co-host Danny Hobart are talking about this as an active element in our daily experience and pack mentality from a practical aspect.  The wisdom of self-inquiry leads us to wise...

I am Ronn Pawo McLane here with my good friend and co-host Danny Hobart. Welcome to The Backyard Buddhist Podcast – Where we seek to bring calm introspection together with skillful action.   Today on the Backyard Buddhist were introducing our First HOT ON THE GRILL SEGMENT.  This is where we are talking about the relevant hot button issues that were faced with today.  You would have to live in a r...

Some days more than others we have trouble keeping our heads in the game.  Persistent thoughts continually knock us off our seat of awareness and the result is often depleted exhaustion and despair. Today on The Backyard Buddhist Ronn Pawo McLane and Danny Hobart are talking about feeding our inner demons and how to transform negative personal afflictions to positive daily growth.  

We are all trying hard to become better people.  We want to be better partners, parents and friends, but end up feeling exhausted and depleted.  So how do we balance all that?  The struggle to be better humans in our daily experience gets knocked off track with seemingly every irritation and conflict.  By changing our perspective to first supporting ourselves through the tools of compassionate und...

In this episode join Ronn Pawo McLane and Danny Hobart as they discuss the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, Impermanence, and interconnectedness.  How can we use ancient wisdom to help us with our anxiety and depression?