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.

Oliver Burkeman is the author of Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts, and the bestselling Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, is now available. Oliver wrote a long-running weekly column on psychology for The Guardian, "This Column Will Change Your Life," and his work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Psychologies, and New Philosopher. Learn more about him at oliverburkeman.com, and subscribe to his regular newsletter, The Imperfectionist.

Please support the podcast via Substack and subscribe for free or with small monthly contributions. Paid subscribers will receive occasional extras like guided meditations, extra podcast episodes and more! The Meditation Group starts up again on May 15th, and a special podcast/meditation on "Intuition" will be released to paid subscribers this Friday, May 2nd. You can also subscribe to The Road Home podcast wherever you get your pods (Apple, Spotify,Ethan's Website, etc).

Check out all the cool offerings at our podcast sponsor Dharma Moon, including the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training program beginning June 13th, 2025. Free video courses co-taught by Ethan and others, such as The Three Marks of Existence, are also available for download.

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 also ponders why pop culture seems to so rarely depict the act of meditation itself with any experiential accuracy. Note: a few moderate spoilers (though not major ones) are in the podcast, but the first twenty minutes primarily concern Dharma Art and The "God Realm."

Please support the podcast via Substack and subscribe for free or with small monthly contributions. Paid subscribers will receive occasional extras like guided meditations, extra podcast episodes and more! The Meditation Group starts up again on May 8th, and a special podcast/meditation on "Intuition" will be released to paid subscribers this Friday, May 2nd. You can also subscribe to The Road Home podcast wherever you get your pods (Apple, Spotify, Ethan's Website, etc).

Check out all the cool offerings at our podcast sponsor Dharma Moon. Free video courses co-taught by Ethan and others, such as The Three Marks of Existence, are also available for download.

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 soft front."

Please support the podcast via Substack and subscribe for free or with small monthly contributions. Paid subscribers will receive occasional extras like guided meditations, extra podcast episodes and more!

Check out all the cool offerings at our podcast sponsor Dharma Moon. Free video courses co-taught by Ethan and others, such as The Three Marks of Existence, are also available for download.

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 fear and greed. The key, he says, is to be able to differentiate between arising mental emotions and the awareness that contains and welcomes them, and then to continuously generate compassion for all human beings. He offers two simple questions we can each ask ourselves when we encounter intense states of mind as humanity's roller coaster ride become increasingly topsy turvy—and perhaps increasingly hopeful—in the months ahead.

Please support the podcast via Substack and subscribe for free or with small monthly contributions. Paid subscribers will receive occasional extras like guided meditations, extra podcast episodes and more!

Check out all the cool offerings at our sponsor Dharma Moon. Free video courses, such as The Three Marks of Existence, are also available for download.

Notes:

To find further explanation of the eight worldly winds, check out Ethan's latest book Confidence: Holding Your Seat Through Life's Eight Worldly Winds or the adapted essay in Lion's Roar Magazine.

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, along with proposing the sacredness of human labor, wisdom and creativity as a basic Buddhist principle, as well as a principle of right livelihood. He also includes a Buddhist understanding of the meaning of consciousness, and why AI might never meet the standard.

Please support the podcast via Substack and subscribe for free or with small monthly contributions. Paid subscribers will receive occasional extras like guided meditations, extra podcast episodes and more!

Check out all the cool offerings at our sponsor Dharma Moon. Free video courses, such as The Three Marks of Existence, are also available for download.

Notes:

To see some of the energy usage date on artificial intelligence, see this link

To see which author's works have been pirated, see The Atlantic's list here.

To read about The "Suzuki Roshi" Chatbot, read here.

An alternate translation of Suzuki Roshi's famed quote to his students is:

"Each of you is perfect the way you are ... and you can use a little improvement."

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 three poisons of greed, hatred and delusion, or whether they are helping us liberate from those confused mentalities. Can we set samsara on fire instead?

Ethan also makes a bad dad joke about using Tesla technology to make fart noises happen on a meditation retreat when our mind wanders or we need to wake up.

Please support the podcast via Substack and subscribe for free or with small monthly contributions. Paid subscribers will receive occasional extras like guided meditations, extra podcast episodes and more!

Check out all the cool offerings at our sponsor Dharma Moon, including the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training, starting March 21 (this week!). Free video courses, such as The Three Marks of Existence, are also available for download.

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 the amazing charcuterie plate you made for them?

Please support the podcast via Substack and subscribe for free or with small monthly contributions. Paid subscribers will receive occasional extras like guided meditations, extra podcast episodes and more!

Check out all the cool offerings at our sponsor Dharma Moon, including the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training, starting March 21 (next week!). Free video courses, such as The Three Marks of Existence, are also available for download.

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 of Love: Buddhist Wisdom for Modern Relationships and The Buddhist Enneagram: Nine Paths to Warriorship. Her most recent book is Inexplicable Joy: On the Heart Sutra. Susan has been a student of Buddhism since 1993, graduated from a Buddhist seminary in 2004 and began to teach meditation in 2005. In 2014, she founded The Open Heart Project, an online dharma center with nearly 20000 members.

Please support the podcast via Substack and subscribe for free or with small monthly contributions. Paid subscribers will receive occasional extras like guided meditations, extra podcast episodes and more!

Check out all the cool offerings at our sponsor Dharma Moon, including the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training, starting March 21. Free video courses, such as The Three Marks of Existence, are also available for download.

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 subscribe for free or with small monthly contributions. Paid subscribers will receive occasional extras like guided meditations, extra podcast episodes and more.

Check out all the cool offerings at our sponsor Dharma Moon, including the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training, starting March 21. Free courses, such as The Three Marks of Existence, are also available for download. Also check out free upcoming events with Professor Robert Thurman and David Nichtern on March 4th!

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 be the key to building new powerful systems in the world. He also examines a rule for social change involving only 3.5% of us making different, more awakened choices. Imagine if only a few percent of us shifted our energy from harmful systems into something healthier.

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 Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training, starting March 21. Free courses, such as The Three Marks of Existence, are also available for download. Also check out free upcoming events with Duncan Trussell and Robert Thurman.