This episode of the Wisdom Podcast, recorded live as a Wisdom Dharma Chat, features a conversation with simplicity blogger and bestselling author Leo Babauta.

Leo created Zen Habits, a Top 25 blog with over a million readers, when he started writing to chronicle and share what he’s learned while changing a number of habits, including waking early, losing weight, quitting smoking, becoming a runner, eliminating debt, and more. In this wide-ranging conversation, Leo shares some of his approaches to eliminating “bad” habits and developing “good” habits, explaining how bringing awareness to thought and behavior allows for examination of deeply embedded psychological patterns and is thus instrumental in creating sustainable change within oneself. 

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The post Leo Babauta: Zen Habits (#111) appeared first on The Wisdom Experience.

This episode of the Wisdom Podcast, recorded live as a Wisdom Dharma Chat, features a conversation with special guest and beloved teacher Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche.

In this episode, Rinpoche and host Daniel Aitken discuss

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Mentioned in this episode

The post Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche: Peaceful Heart: The Buddhist Practice of Patience (#110) appeared first on The Wisdom Experience.

This episode of the Wisdom Podcast, recorded live as a Wisdom Dharma Chat, features a conversation with guest Thupten Jinpa Langri. This Dharma Chat was a special book launch where we celebrated the release of Jinpa’s translation of Tsongkhapa’s Illuminating the Intent: An Exposition of Candrakīrti’s Entering the Middle Way.

Topics discussed include the significance of this text, common misunderstandings of Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka, some of Tsongkhapa’s most important ideas and philosophies, and much more.

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The post Thupten Jinpa: Illuminating the Intent (#109) appeared first on The Wisdom Experience.

This episode of the Wisdom Podcast, recorded live as a Wisdom Dharma Chat, features an interview with Malcolm Smith, renowned Tibetan Buddhist translator. Malcolm is the translator of two box sets from the Seventeen Tantras, published by Wisdom: The Self-Arisen Vidyā Tantra (Vol. 1) and The Self-Liberated Vidyā Tantra (Vol. 2), and The Tantra Without Syllables (Vol. 3) and The Blazing Lamp Tantra (Vol. 4).

Daniel and Malcolm discuss the connection between the channels and various states of consciousness, the Seventeen Dzogchen Tantras, many facets of Dzogchen practice and philosophy, and much more!

The post Malcolm Smith: Translating the Tantras (#108) appeared first on The Wisdom Experience.

This episode of the Wisdom Podcast features an interview with Mark Van Buren, a mindful living trainer, yoga and meditation instructor, personal trainer, and musician who has been promoting health and wellness for over a decade. He’s the author of A Fool’s Guide to Actual Happiness and Your Life IS Meditation. 

Mark discusses:

Correction: In this episode, Mark mentions 10,000 chants; he meant to say 100,000.

The post Mark Van Buren: Your Life Is Meditation (#107) appeared first on The Wisdom Experience.

For this episode of the Wisdom Podcast, host Daniel Aitken interviews poet and teacher John Brehm. Wisdom is proud to have published two of John’s books: his collection The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy, which came out in 2017, and his 2021 book The Dharma of Poetry.

In this episode we explore the fascinating and profound territory where spirituality and poetry come together, with John as our expert guide. John shares specific practices and ideas that will deepen and enhance your experience of reading poetry, including:

John Brehm is the author of three books of poems—Sea of Faith, Help Is On the Way, and No Day at the Beach—and the associate editor of The Oxford Book of American Poetry. He teaches at the Mountain Writers Series in Portland, Oregon and the Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, Colorado. He also offers a monthly Poetry as Spiritual Practice gathering online and leads mindfulness retreats with his wife, Alice Boyd, that include movement, guided meditation, and mindful poetry discussions.

The post John Brehm: The Dharma of Poetry (#106) appeared first on The Wisdom Experience.

In this special episode of the Wisdom Podcast—recorded live as a Wisdom Dharma Chat—host Daniel Aitken speaks with Michael Imperioli, best known for his role as Christopher Moltisanti in The Sopranos, for which he won a 2004 Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. Michael is also a practicing Tibetan Buddhist and is a student of His Eminence Garchen Rinpoche. 

The conversation begins with Michael recounting his initial explorations of Buddhism. He recalls how he has been a spiritual seeker since he was young and went through a series of encounters with various mystical and shamanistic traditions before connecting with Buddhism. After achieving certain levels of success with his acting career, Michael remembers feeling that something was lacking in his life and describes how Buddhist instruction and practice helped him to address this.

Michael also discusses the ways in which acting and Buddhist practice dovetail with each other, describing how some of the techniques of method acting are akin to Tibetan practices in terms of movement, vocalization, imagination, and concentration. Noting these similarities, Michael explains how acting primed him, not necessarily for Buddhist practice itself, but for developing the motivation to learn more and delve deeper into the Vajrayana tradition. 

Please note: this episode was recorded over Zoom as a Wisdom Dharma Chat and is presented here in its original form, but with the Q&A portion removed. Click here to learn about past and future Dharma Chats.

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In this special episode of the Wisdom Podcast—recorded live as a Wisdom Dharma Chat—host Daniel Aitken speaks with Anne C. Klein (Lama Rigzin Drolma), professor of religion at Rice University and a founding director and resident teacher of Dawn Mountain, a center for contemplative study and practice in Houston.

Anne brings us into the world of translating Tibetan and of the Nyingma tradition. She tells us how she met her teacher Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche, a known scholar and hidden Dzogchen master, and how his teachings led to her translation of the book Strand of Jewels.

Anne also discusses her relationship with Adzom Rinpoche, telling us how they initially met in Tibet many years ago and about their upcoming book with Wisdom about Jigme Lingpa’s pithy Dzogchen teachings. She illuminates how Dzogchen contributes to a developing sense of wholeness, and how as a fruitional path it helps one uncover how the true nature of all things is wisdom.

Please note: this episode was recorded over Zoom as a Wisdom Dharma Chat and is presented here in its original form, but with the Q&A portion removed. Click here to learn about past and future Dharma Chats.

This episode features a song from Jetsun Khacho Wangmo. You can hear more of her music here.

Anne C. Klein is professor and former chair of the religion department at Rice University. She is also a lama in the Nyingma tradition and a founding director and resident teacher of Dawn Mountain, a center for contemplative study and practice in Houston. 

Below are the photos mentioned in the episode.

Adzom Rinpoche:

Jetsun Khacho Wangmo:

The post Anne C. Klein: Finding Wholeness in the Dzogchen Path (#104) appeared first on The Wisdom Experience.

For this episode of the Wisdom Podcast, host Daniel Aitken speaks with Zen teacher John Tarrant Roshi about one of John’s favorite topics: Zen koans. As a meditation teacher, koans are a core foundation of John’s teaching methodology, and he has spent a lifetime refining his understanding of their function as a gateway to insight as well as a teaching tool. For John, a koan is not a gadget but a method and an environment. Instead of viewing Zen as a set of rules and procedures, he discusses koan practice as a creative process. Like a poet who trusts that the next line will appear in his or her poem, engaging with a koan requires a similar leap into uncertainty. Likewise, uncertainty can itself function as a method and an object of trust. John also speaks to the function of beauty, art, and music as being koan-like in their ability to spark insight.

A native of Australia, John also considers the parallels between Aboriginal spirituality and Buddhist practice and shares stories from his early years meditating in the rainforest that laid the foundation for his spiritual practice. The podcast concludes with John sharing a reading of “The Master Song Man: An Australian Koan” from his book Bring Me the Rhinoceros.

John is the Dharma heir of Zen teacher Robert Aitken and is also the director of the Pacific Zen Institute, which has centers in California, Arizona, and Canada.

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For this episode of the Wisdom Podcast, host Daniel Aitken speaks with returning guest and author Venerable Thubten Chodron about her latest book with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, In Praise of Great Compassion. This is the fifth volume in the Library of Wisdom and Compassion series, which continues the Dalai Lama’s teachings on the path to awakening.

Ven. Chodron has been working on this series for the past decade in consultation with the Dalai Lama as a set of foundational teachings that help contextualize Tibetan Buddhist teachings for those coming from a Western background. You’ll hear her describe the process of compiling and writing these texts, including the experience of sitting through multi-day interviews with the Dalai Lama, geshes, and translators. She and Daniel then dive into the content of the newest volume in the series. They discuss and compare the four immeasurables across multiple Buddhist traditions, before turning to various conceptions of what it means to become an arhat versus a buddha, as well as the role of compassion in generating bodhicitta.

Ven. Chodron is the abbess and founder of Sravasti Abbey in Newport, Washington. She has practiced the Buddha’s teachings for over thirty-five years, and has studied extensively with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Tsenzhap Serkhong Rinpoche, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and Lama Thubten Yeshe, among many other Tibetan masters.

Learn more about the book and course Buddhism: One Teacher, Many Traditions that Ven. Chodron says started the Library of Wisdom and Compassion series.

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