The Imperfect Buddha Podcast

I grew up with Alexandra David-Neel’s books on my mum’s bookshelf. She was part of the myth making process that led to my own fascination with Tibet, as something real, and as fantasy, a description that is often used to define Neel’s relationship and presentation of Tibet. She was either a key that helped open the door into the world of Tibet with its Lamas, Vajrayana Buddhism, and enormous mount...

Regular guest to the podcast Glenn Wallis wrote  A Critique of Western Buddhism: Ruins of the Buddhist Real (Bloomsbury) back in 2018. Time has flown since and in honour of the non-Buddhism project, and some interesting news coming up, the Imperfect Buddha Podcast presents this audio review of the text that will serve as a useful introduction to the topic itself for those new to the world of this...

Ken Bradford, Ph. D., has been a practitioner in the Theravada and Tibetan Buddhist traditions since 1975, and engaged in introducing meditative sensibilities and nondual wisdom streams into the experience-near practice of psychotherapy since 1988. Formerly, he was in private psychotherapy practice for 25 years, an Adjunct Professor at John F. Kennedy University and CIIS, Co-Director of Maitri Psy...

What does it mean to be a hundred? Perhaps Fredric Nietzsche would know. He’s in part the star of the show. Along with regular guest Glenn Wallis. We look at the ideal reader, the ideal thinker, and perhaps the ideal practitioner. We discuss his work in progress, Nietzsche NOW! A book that wonders what Nietzsche would have to say about Wokeism. We also discuss the podcast on its 100th birthday and...

Peter Fenner, Ph. D, is an adapter and teacher of non-duality, and an author. His two books, Radiant Mind: Awakening Unconditioned Awareness (Sounds True, 2007) and Natural Awakening: An Advanced Guide for Sharing Nondual Awareness (Sumeru Press, 2015), draw on a dialectical method adapted from his monastic training with the Gelugpa School of Tibetan Buddhism. We discuss philosophical psychology,...

The Think Pieces continue. This month, it is a look back at a piece on being Buddhist and identity. The text version can be found below. Themes picked up on in this episode include: Identity in an age of identity politics Playing identity politics, or not The discomfort of committing to the Buddhist identity True me versus contextual me The therapeutic age Buddhism as capture V Buddhism as liberat...

In this episode, Pierce Salguero comes on to discuss two of his books: Buddhish, A Guide to the 20 Most Important Buddhist Ideas for the Curious and Skeptical (Beacon Press, 2022) and A Global History of Buddhism and Medicine (Columbia UP, 2022). Pierce is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities, fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and cross...

And so it continues. The fifth and final installment in this series on doubt continues to explore an enlightened vision of practice in the 21st century. It explores the call to practice, honesty, doubt’s place and epistemic humility. It also looks at how to practice with doubt through suggestions for meditation practices and contemplative exploration. What’s more, this episode serves as a launch p...

Welcome to the new season of the Imperfect Buddha Podcast. After a well-earned and challenging summer filled with drought, war, political strife and ridiculous heat, we’re back in the saddle and raring to go with some intellectual stimulation aimed at the practicing life. Four episodes are lined up with Buddhist scholars, philosophers and practitioners. First off we have Jin Y. Park. She is Profes...

In an historic event, the second Buddha himself Nagarjuna returns from the dead to team up with Jacques Derrida, non-Buddha, perhaps, to take on emptiness. They clash with identity politics. Bump into Jordan Peterson and the misses, and go for a coffee with John Gray. What you say? All of that in a single episode! Yes, dear listener. All of that in a single episode. You are called to enjoy the sec...

The fourth installment in this series on doubt continues to explore an enlightened vision of practice in the 21st century. It explores the call to practice, honesty, doubt’s place and epistemic humility. Text version here. Matthew O'Connell is a life coach and the host of the The Imperfect Buddha podcast. You can find The Imperfect Buddha on Facebook and Twitter (@imperfectbuddha). Learn more abou...

Welcome to this Great feast conversation. Philosophy Professor at Seattle University, Soto Zen Priest, Sangha leader, and Dharma teacher, Jason M. Wirth is the author of Nietzsche and other Buddhas: Philosophy after Comparative Philosophy (Indiana UP, 2019), Engaging Dogen’s Zen and Mountains, and Rivers, and the Great Earth, both from 2017. In a rare and deep conversation, we discuss whether Niet...

Today I talk with Peter Salmon, author of An Event, Perhaps; an intellectual biography of Jacques Derrida. Our conversation was rich: We tackle Derrida and Buddhism, Derrida and the culture wars, Derrida and practice. Foucault gets a mention, as does Heidegger, as does spiritual enlightenment, mindfulness and spirituality. Our conversation was incomplete. We made plans. This is now the first part...

In the third part of this series on Doubt, we head off to the Great Feast. Come along and dine with the Buddha, your favourite philosophers, and any other great mind you have a penchant for. You won’t regret it. Matthew O'Connell is a life coach and the host of the The Imperfect Buddha podcast. You can find The Imperfect Buddha on Facebook and Twitter (@imperfectbuddha). Learn more about your ad c...

In this episode, returning guest Daniel Ingram comes on to discuss a range of fascinating questions concerning practice. We explore coming through the pandemic, the impact of long-term relationships on practice, first Buddhist books, hardcore Dharma practice, how life might have been different without practice, suffering and karma and Daniel’s new project, The Emergent Phenomenology Research Conso...

“Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one.” Voltaire You know too much, yet understand too little. And it’s the same for me, and everyone you and I happen to know. And, so it begins. What follows are a series of posts and audio-casts that respond to this living human condition, bringing together practice materials from non-Buddhism, post-traditional approaches to Budd...

Stef Aupers is professor of media culture in the Institute for Media Studies at the University of KU Leuven in the Netherlands. As a cultural sociologist, he studies the role of cultural meaning in the production, textual representation and consumption of media. Stef has published widely in international journals on the topics of religion, modern myth, conspiracy theories and the way these culture...

“Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one.” Voltaire You know too much, yet understand too little. And it’s the same for me, and everyone you and I happen to know. And, so it begins. What follows are a series of posts and audio-casts that respond to this living human condition, bringing together practice materials from non-Buddhism, post-traditional approaches to Budd...

In the practising life, choices must be made. Those choices occur at all levels from big picture views of the world, a whole life, and society, to the everyday choice of how to be in the world, how to act, and what to commit to. In this three part series on Secular Buddhism, we find figures who have made a specific choice to stick with Buddhism and attempt to change it. Winton Higgins notes that t...

Take a trip to the Great Feast in this first in a series of posts on the practising life. Non-Buddhism meets post-traditional slants on practice, whilst tackling complexity, doubt, and ecological thought. Practise questions and suggestions are woven throughout as a response to all you who desire practical things and have asked for them. This might just be a revolution in rethinking meditation and...

Today I speak to Stephen Batchelor, figurehead for Secular Buddhism, well known author, and Scot. I present the lovely man some of the critique aimed at his work in the book Secularizing Buddhism, and from my previous interview with Richard K. Payne. We also discuss some of his intellectual influences, touch on phenomenology, Gianni Vattimo, and whether Stephen is fixated on the past in his relati...

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 Publications, Se...

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...

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...

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, pe...