The Road Home with Ethan Nichtern

Ethan is joined by friend and yoga teacher Francesca Cervero to talk about becoming a teacher as a livelihood, the duty of the teacher when it comes to building community in a post-pandemic world, and how to be clear and open with students about the ethical teachings of Buddhism and yoga in a world of chaos, violence and oppression. Francesca Cervero (she/her) has been a full time yoga and meditat...

In this episode, Ethan discusses the crucial question of "enlightenment," better translated as "awakening." What does this word mean? What doesn't it mean? How would we know if we were really there? Is awakening a big deal? And most importantly, how can we glimpse it, or notice the glimpses we are already having of our awakening, and build off of those powerful moments with confidence in our devel...

16 months ago, yoga/meditation/sound teacher Reggie Hubbard had a near-death experience, a major stroke. He visits the podcast to describe the experience of his "neurological storm" and the path of collapse and healing that he's been on ever since, and how it has profoundly affected his views as a practitioner, teacher, and his views of the neurological storm that the United States and the world i...

Ethan discusses three reasons we take vows and make commitments from a Buddhist perspective, and gives special emphasis to The Bodhisattva Vow, where we commit to not only pursue our own path of liberation and awakening, but also vow to work for the benefit of all beings, to the limits of space, until all beings are awake. It is a commitment to the collective liberation of all beings. Of course, t...

Ethan welcomes Buddhist Geeks Co-Founder, teacher, and Palestinian-American Dharma teacher Vince Fakhoury Horn . They discuss the rise of "podcast dharma" in the early 21st century, Vince's path to teaching meditation, Vince's experience of his Palestinian heritage, why it's hard to get Dharma teachers to speak out about the genocide in Gaza, The Buddhist practice of Mohsen Mahdawi , and the compl...

This is the 150th episode of The Road Home Podcast! Yay, Big Deal! But, it's—as always—also a conversation about the Dharma, and the mind, and how to work with your own experience. And your mind, especially during meditation, can be boring. Very boring. So why is boredom such a difficult, yet important—and creative—experience? What do we do about boredom in meditation practice, as well as boredom...

(This episode of The Road Home is dedicated to the memory of Joanna Macy —founder of the Eco-Dharma and Deep Ecology Movements—who passed this weekend at the age of 96) On this episode, a follow-up to episode 148, Ethan explores wealth and generosity from a tantric perspective. If you could take the view, for just one moment, that you, your perceptions, and your world were all perfect in being exa...

What is generosity ("dana" in the Buddhist languages), and how does it relate to our experience of wealth, our consumption, our labor, and our shared values as a society? How can we work with our craving for always have more like one of those a metal claw machines in a video game arcade, leaving us unable to live in the practice of Dana, or "fluid exchange" with our experience? Similarly, how do w...

How we work with our minds in the spaces between collapse and rebirth (those uncomfortable gaps in life as well as the huge "gap" after death) hold the key to creating futures that do not replicate the stuckness and suffering of our past. This is true both personally and collectively. As always, with recent world events in mind, we discuss the six bardos of classic Tibetan Buddhism, as well as the...

Ethan visits a recurrent conversation he's been having with his students, his friends, and within his own mind: the dissonance between feeling like your personal life and close community are in basically good places, while simultaneously raising your gaze to see the immense suffering and chaos of the world. How can we hold those two and find our compassion and skillful means? Framing thoughts arou...

What is resentment? Why is it so corrosive? How can we work with our resentments? How can we overcome a victim mentality while still protecting ourselves, protecting others, and protecting truth? In this solo episode, Ethan uses a classic Tantric Buddhist contemplative slogan from the Lojong mind training tradition that translates as either "Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment" or "sta...

In a spontaneous episode, Ethan discusses grief and loss while processing multiple events. At a recent compassion meditation retreat, colleague and friend René Fay gave a presentation where she discussed the need to "Microdose Grief," to take it in little by little so that we can honor the small moments of loss to develop familiarity with the experience when the big waves come. Through remembering...

How can we embrace the limitations of time and the certainty of death and create real fulfillment that thrives on an honest assessment of our human predicament? These are the questions at the heart of this episode.  Ethan welcomes back bestselling author and journalist Oliver Burkeman for a discussion of finitude, death, limitations, productivity, and dueling concepts of the meaning of meditation....

In this episode, Ethan does what at least 40 people have asked him to do (special shout-out to Michele S. in Iowa who convinced him to devote a whole podcast episode to it!) - share his thoughts, as a Buddhist, on Season 3 of the Max streaming series The White Lotus. To do so, he explains three different ways to look at the concept of "Dharma Art," along with a discussion of the three realms. He a...

In this episode, Ethan links a crucial set of instructions from mindfulness meditation teachers of the past regarding how we carry our posture to what it means to show up in this world at a time of chaos. He discusses the instructions on mindfulness meditation from the "warrior" tradition of enlightened society, as well as decoding the qualities of the instruction to maintain a "strong back, and a...

After tariffs were broadly imposed by the current American regime (including, apparently on uninhabited islands populated mostly by penguins) causing a nearly unprecedented crash of the stock market, and after attending the lovely and unexpectedly massive protest marches that took place on April 5, Ethan ponders how to deal with extreme states of mind with a world on a roller coaster marked by fea...

In light of revelations about the theft of countless authors' work by one A.I. company (guess which one ), Ethan finally talks about a topic he's been requested to cover for a while: Buddhist views on artificial intelligence. He begins by positioning the conversation within the frame of View and Intention, asking the question of what "technology" is and why and how we even want it to progress, alo...

Ethan delves further into right action during a time of protest and chaos, using the recent examples of Tesla cars and cybertrucks being set on fire as a launching point. In The Power of Choice episode, he looked into the five precepts as guidelines for empowered and skillful action. In this episode, he looks into actions of mind as our guide: whether our actions are furthering our fixation on the...

Ethan delves into the Bodhisattva teachings on happiness, benefitting beings, and " idiot compassion ," or what happens when compassion becomes an ego construction. How do we tell the difference between helping others in a nourishing way, on the one hand, and doing things for others that we really don't want to do that leave us burnt out and resentful? And what do you do if no one thanks you for t...

Ethan welcomes bestselling author and Dharma teacher Susan Piver for a discussion of the groundlessness of our current world framed through her new book Inexplicable Joy: On The Heart Sutra . If you'd like to read a translation of this classic Buddhist text, you can find that on Ethan's Substack . Susan Piver is the New York Times bestselling author of many books, including The Four Noble Truths o...

Ethan discusses the classic origins of the worldview of "Materialism," as well a framework developed by the Tibetan teacher Chogyam Trungpa called "The Three Lords of Materialism" for looking at how we can notice our tendency to chase peak experiences in the arenas of the physical world, intellectual experience, and of course, our spiritual paths. Please support the podcast via Substack and subscr...

Ethan discusses a classic Buddhist concept, sīla (or shila), through the lens of knowing where to place our attention and action, knowing "what to cultivate and what to reject." Choices shift energy and energy can build power, and that power can be the difference between awakening and confusion. Ethan also argues, using the five precepts (or five mindfulness trainings) as a guide, that this might...

Ethan is joined for an insightful discussion about Dharma Art with Academy Award-winning film editor and Buddhist meditator Andrew Buckland. They discuss the practice of filmmaking and creativity more generally, as well as Andrew's path, the film  A Complete Unknown , the Bob Dylan biopic which was Andrew's latest editing project. Finally, they discuss why working in the film profession sometimes...

Ethan is joined for an insightful discussion about Entering the Study of Buddhism with the faculty of Dharma Moon's Yearlong Buddhist Studies program. Check out all the cool offerings at our sponsor  Dharma Moon, including the Yearlong Buddhist Studies program (The first 6-Week module, Entering The Path , is open to all and starts  January 28, 2025) and  Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training . A...

Ethan offers a lovingkindness (metta/maitri) meditation for all who are effected by the climate crisis, and discusses why when global crises require our action, our practice might be a privilege, but it's also a necessity. The climate crisis recognizes no borders, and we are truly all in this together. Just a few links to help and get involved with the Los Angeles wildfires are:  Global Empowermen...