Secular Buddhism

We seem to really struggle when it comes to having conversations about difficult topics. Are we listening with the intent to understand the other person or are we simply assessing to determine what team the other person is on? Are they team "us" or team "them". In this episode I will discuss the idea of listening to understand.

Explore more at eightfoldpath.com: full transcripts, guided meditations, courses, and Noah AI, an AI you can chat with about any episode or teaching.

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Sometimes we fail because we try too hard, other times because don't try hard enough. The trick is to find the right balance, the space in between, the space that is often referred to in Buddhism as The Middle Way. In this podcast episode, I will discuss the idea of the Middle way in terms of space and time.

Explore more at eightfoldpath.com: full transcripts, guided meditations, courses, and Noah AI, an AI you can chat with about any episode or teaching.

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In this podcast episode, I will discuss some of the exercises and introspective questions that I believe can lead to a more mindful way of living. These are exercises that are published in the new book "The 5-Minute Mindfulness Journal."

Explore more at eightfoldpath.com: full transcripts, guided meditations, courses, and Noah AI, an AI you can chat with about any episode or teaching.

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The essence of many of the Buddha's discourses and teachings can be found in the Eightfold Path, often referred to as the Path of Liberation. It is not a path we walk only once or in a particular order. It's meant to be a guide for specific areas of life in which we can experience and discover the nature of reality.

Explore more at eightfoldpath.com: full transcripts, guided meditations, courses, and Noah AI, an AI you can chat with about any episode or teaching.

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If Buddhism were to be summarized in one key teaching, that teaching would be about the nature of dukkha (suffering/dissatisfaction) and the cessation of dukkha. There is a fundamental unsatisfactoriness and stress that we all deal with in life. In the next 3 episodes, I will discuss the core Buddhist teaching of the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, and some helpful practices we can all work with to deal with the dissatisfaction that arises from time to time in life. This is part 1 of 3.

Explore more at eightfoldpath.com: full transcripts, guided meditations, courses, and Noah AI, an AI you can chat with about any episode or teaching.

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The tale of many tales is the story we have about ourselves and the story we try to ensure that others have of us too. What are some of the stories you have about yourself? How attached are you to these stories? Does that attachment cause any self-inflicted suffering to arise?

Explore more at eightfoldpath.com: full transcripts, guided meditations, courses, and Noah AI, an AI you can chat with about any episode or teaching.

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Life is not fair, it's true! But is that really a problem? In this podcast episode, I will discuss the monkey reward experiment where one monkey was given cucumbers and another was given grapes and the result of that decision. I will also discuss the idea of sitting with discomfort. If you can sit with discomfort, you can do anything…

Explore more at eightfoldpath.com: full transcripts, guided meditations, courses, and Noah AI, an AI you can chat with about any episode or teaching.

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In a reality that is continually changing, our views are limited in space and time. The result is that we are essentially the blind leading the blind. In this episode, I will discuss the teaching of the blind men and the elephant and share 5 tips for people who are in mixed-belief relationships (we all are).

Explore more at eightfoldpath.com: full transcripts, guided meditations, courses, and Noah AI, an AI you can chat with about any episode or teaching.

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Suffering arises when we want things to be other than how they are. Where there is hope, there is fear and where there is fear there is hope. They are like two sides of the same coin. When we feel uneasy, we get restless, we want to change something about ourselves or others, we hope things could be another way. Having no hope can be the start of a radical form of acceptance.

Explore more at eightfoldpath.com: full transcripts, guided meditations, courses, and Noah AI, an AI you can chat with about any episode or teaching.

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"I think of mindfulness meditation as almost a rebellion against natural selection...Natural selection sets our agenda, and Buddhism says, 'We don't have to play this game." In this episode, I will discuss the concept of embracing rebellion as a form of living more mindfully. I will also clarify a couple of things from last week's episode. I hope you enjoy this topic!

Explore more at eightfoldpath.com: full transcripts, guided meditations, courses, and Noah AI, an AI you can chat with about any episode or teaching.

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