The Naked Monk

Stephen Schettini speaks with Vincent Horn about his mission/koan: "the fusion of nascent technology and contemplative wisdom," about the convergence of various strands of Buddhism and modernity, and what it means to be a human being at this time.

Stephen Schettini speaks with Martine Batchelor about how her youthful anarchism was disrupted by Buddhism, about her teaching style and how much she’s learned from her students, about the different types of Buddhism and the normalization of Buddhism in modern life. She describes her focus on the threefold training of ethics, mediation and wisdom, and discusses the ways in which she and her husband Stephen Batchelor have influenced each other’s teaching.

Stephen Schettini speaks with Martin Aylward about the pragmatic side of Buddhism, as opposed to its ideas or beliefs. They compare Buddhism with other contemplative traditions and ask whether contemplativeness is entering the mainstream. They look at American and other emerging forms of Buddhism. They talk about monastic life and samadhi versus the engaged life, about evolved as opposed to pathological mystical experience, about atheists and the concerns of modern culture and about whether consciousness is necessarily destined to evolve.

Stephen Schettini speaks with Ken McLeod about inner demons and bliss, about truth about whether Buddhism is unique and especially what would happen to society if its citizens were to see through their projections. Ken begins with the surprising statement that he, “Never thought Buddhism would make my life better.”

Stephen Schettini speaks with Ted Meissner about Ted’s experience at a Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction workshop with Jon Kabat-Zinn, his commitment as a practicing Buddhist — notwithstanding his secularism, about religion and Buddhist institutions, about magic and materialism, spirituality and naturalism, fables and myth. Finally they speculate on the migration of Buddhism away from the exclusive monastic environment and into the more eclectic settings of lay life.

Stephen Schettini speaks with David Webster about Buddhism Light and speculates on its long-term influence on society at large. They consider what the ancestral Western religions would look like today had Buddhism not been an ideal alternative for the counter-culture, how Tibetan Buddhism upsets people's ideas of what Buddhism is and the stereotype of Buddhists as inherently 'gentle' people.

Stephen Schettini speaks with Stephen Batchelor about why we should or shouldn't call ourselves Buddhists, about the mainstreaming of mindfulness, about his recasting of the Four Truths into the Four Tasks and the difficulty we have digesting that very fundamental change in the way we see Buddhism.