The Lion’s Roar Podcast

Writer, filmmaker, actor, singer, and meditation teacher, Kevin Townley talks about his latest book featuring women whose work exemplifies each of the five wisdom energies in Tibetan Buddhism, how the energies can show up in daily life, and how the spiritualist abstract artist Hilma af Klint embodied the wisdom energy of emptiness.

From her first encounter with Zen to her life as a poet, Black activist, and Zen teacher in Suzuki Roshi’s lineage, Zenju Earthlyn Manuel shares her journey and how it has been informed by the wisdom of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.

Former physician, and internationally known mindfulness and Insight meditation teacher, Christiane Wolf is well versed in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, and classical Buddhist mindfulness. Wolf talks about the early days of the modern mindfulness movement, how Insight and mindfulness communities inform each other, and how mindfulness-based approaches can be used in cognitive therapy and pain management.

Pico Iyer, author of dozens of books including The Lady and the Monk and The Art of Stillness, talks to Lion’s Roar editor in chief Melvin McLeod about the profound wonder that travel invites, how he came to cherish the feeling of wandering in the unknown, and how he came to find a home within himself.

Karla Jackson-Brewer is a senior teacher with the Tara Mandala Buddhist Retreat Center, and longtime student of Lama Tsultrim Allione. In this conversation, Lion’s Roar’s Pamela Ayo Yetunde Talks to her about internalized racism and the medicine Buddhism can offer to heal it.

Psychiatrist and Zen teacher Robert Waldinger directs the Harvard Study of Adult Development—a 75 year-long study on happiness, spanning lifetimes. He speaks with Lion’s Roar’s Melvin McLeod about the nature of happiness as found in the study, and how it all connects with what Buddhism has to say about suffering.

Through the metaphor of Indra’s Net, Lion’s Roar’s associate editor Pamela Ayo Yetunde calls for a “compassion revolution” in her new book, Casting Indra's Net: Fostering Spiritual Kinship and Community. She talks with fellow LR editor Noel Alumit about the deep challenges that lead to violence, and how we can heal from them together.

Lion’s Roar’s Pamela Ayo Yetunde talks to Spring Washam, author of The Spirit of Harriet Tubman: Awakening from the Underground about the power of calling upon the spirit of this veritable bodhisattva to heal the particular wounds of American injustice and tragedy.

Author of The Little Book of Being: Practices and Guidance for Uncovering Your Natural Awareness, and co-author of Fully present: The Science, Art and Practice of Mindfulness, Diana Winston is one of the best-known teachers of mindfulness in the United States. Noami Matlow is a Mindfulness Studies Masters student, and former intern at Lion’s Roar. She asks Diana Winston about significant changes in the mindfulness movement, the relationship between the movement and Buddhism, and what might come next in the evolution of the movement.

Roshi Joan Halifax, Upaya Zen Center founder and head teacher, offers two prayers for the New Year–or any time of the year. Then, the editor of a posthumous release from the trailblazing modern Buddhist nun and teacher, Ayya Khema, talks about the “force of nature” that she was–her adventurous life, her teachings on metta (loving-kindness) and her practices. Editor Leigh Brasington, who practiced and trained with her, also leads a practice in the Ayya Khema style.