By Harry Bridge and Scott Mitchell
a buddhist podcast sheltering in place
Podcasting while sheltering in place. We’re going to restart the DharmaRealm, recording via Zoom, shorter episodes, and posting here, SoundCloud, YouTube, and, as always, your favorite podcasting service. Send us your questions, subscribe to our feeds, and keep your eyes...
The nerds nerd out about nerdy things! Specifically, a couple of Buddhist Studies scholars (nerds) discuss (nerd out) what it means to be a Buddhist Studies scholar (nerdy things). It’s our third and final conversation with the brilliant Dr. Natalie...
It’s our second episode with our special guest, Dr. Natalie Fisk Quli. We’re continuing our conversation about authenticity, this time around beginning with a conversation about merit, merit accumulation and transference, in the Mahayana and Theravada traditions. This gets us...
We’ve got a special guest today! Dr. Natalie Fisk Quli is a teacher at the Institute of Buddhist Studies, author, and co-editor of a couple of books with Scott. She’s joining us today to discuss the idea of authenticity, building...
In a weird way, this is sort of part-two of our post-truth conversation since we’re tackling a perennial problem in the contemporary study and practice of Buddhism — can we know what the historical Buddha really taught? Can we know...
I didn’t want to talk about flat earth or post-truth or aliens! But Harry made me! Anyway. If you listen to this episode, you’ll get an earful of Star Trek, X-Files, aliens, conspiracy theories, multiple interpretations of reality, and even some...
Faith! We’re bouncing off a question about faith in our personal experience with Buddhism. Now, we know that having said faith, half of you said “There’s no faith in Buddhism!” And the other half said, “Well, what do you mean...
A little while back we did an episode on no self and identity — and what do you know? It was wildly popular. Go us. So we decided to come back to the issue. But we’re not gonna deal with...
Somewhat in response to a listener question, we dive into the question of practice versus academic study. Is there a difference between academic study and the practice of Buddha? Is one more valuable than the other? Does academic study undermine...
Hooray! It’s been ten years since we started this show, and this is our 100th episode! We hit the highlights in this one, themes and topics we’ve touched on several times over the years, including how to practice Shin Buddhism...
In today’s episode, we respond to a listener question about the possibility, in Shin Buddhism, of reconciling the concept of no-self (anatman) and personal identity (especially in regards to race). To do that, we need to break down the concept...
Scott’s still got a cold! And he’s a cranky old man who wants to argue with people! So today we’ll try to come up with the Buddhist answer to everything. Not really. Long time listeners should know by now that quick...
For our first full episode of 2018 we tackle a listener question about Buddhism and social justice, jumping off from the tension between accepting things as they are and the urge to stand up to inequality and social suffering. Of...
We’re back! Here’s a teaser to wet your appetite. We’ve got a couple of other episodes in the can that we’ll release this month. And we’re only a few episodes shy of our 100th episode and this March is our...
One more episode recorded in October before the election but on a topic that will most certainly continue to be of importance in the year ahead – race, racism, and American Buddhism. This one’s a bit heavy, wherein we discuss...
Happy Christmas (if that’s your thing – if not then Happy Winter Holiday of Your Choosing)! So, head’s up. We recorded this episode way back in early October and are only just now getting around to posting it. Between then and...
Announcement: we’re doing a “live” show on Saturday August 20 during the CBE’s Pacific Seminar. Check out the the CBE’s website for more information, and send us your questions via Facebook or Twitter! Picking up from our last conversation, we do...
Right off the bat, pretty sure I goofed the origin story of the word “meh” and its reference in The Simpsons. I’m sure someone out there will correct me in the comments. If you can get through the first ten minutes...
Buddhism and Introspection: in which we ramble on for a time about the extent to which Buddhism is introspective, about controlling, watching, or purifying the mind, an extended exercise in trying hard to look inside one’s psychology and recognize our...
Jumping off from our conversation about utopia and Star Trek from our last episode, this time around we’re diving deep into questions of belief and interpretation and how to approach the mythological aspects of Shin Buddhism. What do we do...
I’ll be honest. We spent the first half of this episode geeking out on Star Trek, talking about how this vision of a utopian future hinges on the civilizing influence of an alien culture and that the Federation, being created...
Picking up where we left off (in our D&D; episode), we wrestle again with the questions and challenges of Buddhist ethics. We begin with the assumption that a basic Buddhist ethical framework is based on compassion and informed by the...
That title should really be “Dungeons and Dragons (and Ethics).” Or “D&D;, Star Wars, and Cats (with some Buddhism sprinkled in).” In our first episode for 2016, we wanted to begin a conversation about social ethics — somehow we got sidetracked...
The rumors of deaths have been greatly exaggerated.
In response to a listener question, we discuss the variety of Pure Land practices outside the Shin and Japanese traditions. We begin by noting that Honen and Shinran set up distinct schools and institutions devoted to a single Pure Land...
Following up on our conversation from last time, we tackle a list of listener questions that we thought would be simple but took us off in really different directions. The first question is whether or not Japanese Buddhist traditions rely...
In response to a bunch of listener questions that we thought would be pretty straightforward, we bring you several episodes to discuss, first, the differences between Japanese Buddhist schools of Jodo Shu, Jodo Shinshu, and Nichiren. What unites these traditions...
Reflecting on the sad news of Rev. Dr. Taitetsu Unno’s passing this past month, we thought we’d do a special short episode to acknowledge his influence in our own lives as well as appreciating our good Dharma friends and teachers....
Okay. Some big questions this time around, none of which we’re gonna answer but we have a good time talking around the issues. Does (Shin) Buddhism give us a way to act? Are there guidelines on how to be good...
We’re doing a post-modern meta show about the show where we talk about the show. It’s been six years, this is episode number eighty, and we want to take stock and talk about what we’ve done and where we’re headed....
Just gonna say it up front: Harry’s on fire in these episodes, saying some profound stuff! In this final installment of our reflections on Shin and Zen practice, we take up the issue of other-power/self-power. We dive right into the...
We take up the issue from last time, wandering around the historical circumstances of exclusive practice, Kamakura-era Buddhist schools, deal with how the context in which one practices matters, ritual efficacy, heresy, and whether there’s really a difference between zazen...
Hey! Check out that new theme song! We finally get around to doing some recording and answering some listener questions, this one about the possibility of combining Shin and Zen Buddhist practice. We dance around the issue for a while, meandering...
Our third and final episode with special guest Mushim Ikeda from the East Bay Meditation Center. In this show, we use the current popularity of mindfulness based meditation practices (and their secularized off-shoots) to answer the “why Buddhism” question. We...
Here’s part two of our conversation with Mushim Ikeda of the East Bay Meditation Center. We jump right in from where we left off in the last episode, trying to answer the question of “Why Buddhism?” (Spoiler alert: it’s gotta...
Today is part one of a three-part series of episodes featuring our very first special guest star, Mushim Ikeda. Mushim is a Buddhist teacher, author, mentor and the community coordinator and a core teacher of Oakland’s East Bay Meditation Center. Mushim...
We’re not talking about magicians, we’re talking about ritual and whether or not there is some efficacious power inherent in Buddhist ritual practice. Ritual is often derided by modern folks or rejected explicitly as not a part of Buddhism, distinct...
One of the issues that came up in our last conversation was the idea of “original enlightenment,” or the idea that from an enlightened point of view, everything’s equal. Today we take up some of the consequences of this view;...
Is the BCA silent on issues of social justice? For many, it might seem like there’s no Shin Buddhist public voice in the American discourse on Buddhism and social justice. We’ve been asked several times about this, so today is...
In prepping for our last episode on how to do Shin Buddhist practice, we started thinking about why people do practice and the question of motivations. The conversation starts with a reflection on a conference paper Scott heard early in...
We’re back! And we’re taking up a listener question about practicing Buddhism when you’re not near a Shin community, so we’re calling this one “how to do Shin practice?” This is an important question; what is our practice? How do...
We round out our conversation about music by focusing on Shin Buddhism, starting with Shinran. It’s clear chanting was an important part of early Shin communities, and many of Shinran’s wasan (poems) have come down to us as songs still...
In part two of our discussion of Buddhism and music, we talk (mostly) about the potential genre of “Buddhist music.” Genre is a tricky; it raises all sorts of questions about who gets to define an artist or musician and...
We’ve got a long-standing interest in music; coincidentally, a listener asked us a question about music on Facebook, so we took the subject and ran with it! This is the first of three episodes dedicated to the subject of Buddhism...
“Won’t somebody please think of the children!” This week we take up the tension in Buddhism between the ideal of monasticism, the renunciant, the solo practitioner who goes off in search of awakening versus the reality of home life, laity,...
Let’s pick up where we left off; last time we discussed how contemporary Shin Buddhists can make the teachings and practices applicable to modern life, balancing tradition and change. This raises the important question of how one can determine whether...
Prompted by a listener who’s interested in how Buddhist teachings and practices change over time, in this episode we take up the tension between maintaining tradition versus adaptation to new circumstances. Whereas one could argue that we should look to...
Today we go down the rabbit hole of the Tannisho, the so-called razor text of Shin Buddhism, a text that can cut away misunderstandings, or be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands! Specifically, we’re talking about compassion and the question...
In this episode, Scott complains about the media! Seriously, though, bouncing from the last episode that dealt with the commodification and commercialization of Buddhism, we now deal with the related issue of media representations of Buddhism and Buddhists. How is...
Someone tried to sell some shoes with an image of the Buddha on them. And, boy, were Buddhists mad about it! This is our jumping off point for a discussion about commercialization and the commodification of Buddhism. Should Buddhists be...
