In this episode of the Wisdom Podcast, we meet Tibetan Buddhist teacher and translator Khenchen Konchog Gyaltshen Rinpoche, Great Abbot of the Drikung Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. He tells us about the region where he was born in Tibet in 1946, what Tibet was like at that time, and his memories of fleeing from the country soon after the Dalai Lama left. We hear about the time he spent as a young man in India studying Buddhist philosophy and other subjects at the Central Institute of Higher...
Jun 10, 2016•1 hr 3 min
In this episode of the Wisdom Podcast, host Daniel Aitken interviews Christina Feldman, co-founder of Gaia House in England and a guiding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. Christina has been teaching insight meditation retreats since 1976, and has recently been involved in the dialogue between cognitive therapies and Buddhist practice. This interview took place at IMS, at a time when Christina was conducting a retreat for professionals in fields such social work,...
May 27, 2016•51 min
In this episode of the Wisdom Podcast, we hear stories and teachings from Joseph Goldstein, one of the most well-known Buddhist teachers in the United States. Joseph Goldstein has been teaching meditation for 40 years and founded the Insight Meditation Society in 1976 with Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield, a center that has since introduced thousands of people to meditation. He also has recently begun teaching meditation to, and with, ABC News anchor Dan Harris. Joseph first tells us how he ca...
May 14, 2016•1 hr 12 min
In this episode of the Wisdom Podcast, we meet Theravada Buddhist teacher Shaila Catherine, author of Wisdom Wide and Deep and Focused and Fearless . Shaila was introduced to transcendental meditation in high school, and then later entered the path of Theravada Buddhism. She shares the difficulties she encountered on her first meditation retreat as well as what she encountered on that retreat that inspired her to continue practicing. She then shares how she spent a decade practicing in India, st...
May 02, 2016•1 hr 17 min
In this episode we meet Steve Armstrong , a teacher in the vipassana tradition who has studied the dhamma and practiced insight meditation since 1975. Steve is a co-founding teacher of the Vipassana Metta Foundation’s dharma sanctuary on Maui , and guided the creation of the new book Manual of Insight , the classic collection of teachings by the renowned Mahāsi Sayadaw . Steve begins by telling the story of how his spiritual practice began in a commune for followers of Pink Floyd and the Gratefu...
Apr 15, 2016•1 hr 21 min
This episode of the Wisdom Podcast features our second interview with renowned Buddhist scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi. Ven. Bodhi tells us about the process of creating his book The Buddha’s Teachings on Social and Communal Harmony and how it arose from a real need in various Buddhist communities. Bhikkhu Bodhi shares what “right view” means in the context of social harmony, explaining the meaning of “mundane right view” and its usefulness in promoting social harmony. Ven. Bodhi then tells us how B...
Apr 01, 2016•1 hr 3 min
This week on the Wisdom Podcast we meet Gerry Stribling, the author of Buddhism for Dudes. Gerry shares how he got into Buddhism when he was volunteering Sri Lanka. He first worked at a nonprofit that protected elephants and soon came across insight meditation. He reflects on how Buddhism helps people become tough and shares what about Buddhism appealed to him, a “tough-guy” ex-military man. He talks about his work with veterans and addicts. He talks about the theme of sacrifice in Buddhism and ...
Mar 18, 2016•54 min
In this episode of the Wisdom Podcast, we meet Pascal Auclair, a teacher in the Theravada Buddhist tradition. Pascal starts by telling us how he came to Buddhism when he was traveling in Asia with his partner and ended up at Buddhadasa Bhikkhu’s monastery in Thailand. He was touched by this experience of intimacy with reality. He was struck by the realization that reality is not completely easy and satisfying. He was also deeply affected by the simplicity of the practice of following the breath....
Mar 04, 2016•1 hr
This episode of the Wisdom Podcast features Buddhist thinkers C.W. “Sandy” Huntington and Francisca Cho. Sandy is the author of Maya , a novel published by Wisdom. Francisca is an associate professor of Buddhist Studies at Georgetown University and the author/translator of the Wisdom book Everything Yearned For: Manhae’s Poems of Love and Longing. Sandy begins by reflecting on how the conflation of reality and illusion is a central theme in his novel, and what draws him to this theme. Francisca ...
Feb 19, 2016•57 min
In this episode of the Wisdom Podcast, host Daniel Aitken interviews Robert Thurman, renowned scholar of Buddhism and friend of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. In this rich conversation, we first find out why Robert originally dropped out of Harvard as a senior and went to India, and how Geshe Wangyal brought him to the Dalai Lama, who took on Thurman as a student. Robert was ordained by the Dalai Lama, but we hear why he never followed the path to becoming a geshe. He eventually returned to the U....
Feb 05, 2016•1 hr 21 min
In this episode of the Wisdom Podcast we hear a story of Buddhism and American politics: how Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush met the Dalai Lama, as told by President Bush Sr.’s cousin Elsie Walker. Elsie begins with the story of how she got involved with Tibet House and then reached out to her cousin, President George H. W. Bush, to tell him how she wanted to support the Tibetan people. She then tells us how President George H. W. Bush became the first U.S. president to meet His ...
Jan 22, 2016•44 min
This Wisdom Podcast episode features Stephen Batchelor, renowned Buddhist author, teacher, and proponent of secular Buddhism. Batchelor tells us of his coming of age in the 1960s counterculture—listening to bands like Pink Floyd, reading Herman Hesse and Alan Watts, and being inspired to visit India, traveling there overland from France in 1972. He then shares how he began studying Buddhism at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala, in the presence of the Dalai Lama and Geshe Ng...
Jan 08, 2016•58 min
In this episode of the Wisdom Podcast, our host Daniel Aitken interviews mindfulness author Deborah Schoeberlein David. They begin by discussing how her book Living Mindfully came to be, and go on to the importance of understanding mindfulness deeply as it becomes increasingly popular. Deborah reflects on the difference between mindfulness and meditation in modern terms, how to have a more meaningful experience of mindfulness, and the debate around what mindfulness is. She brings up the importan...
Dec 25, 2015•53 min
Jeffrey Hopkins was translator for His Holiness the Dalai Lama from 1979 to 1989 and Professor of Tibetan Studies at University of Virginia, and has published more than forty books. Jeffrey started meditating while at Harvard and then, inspired by Thoreau and W. Somerset Maugham, spent time in a cabin in the woods in Vermont. He describes this and other adventures as a young man where he discovered the power of the meditative experience, including a wild ocean voyage through the South Pacific. W...
Dec 11, 2015•1 hr 31 min
On this episode of the Wisdom Podcast, hear host Daniel Aitken’s conversation with Venerable Thubten Chodron , the abbess of Sravasti Abbey in Newport, Washington. Venerable Chodron recounts her first exposure to Buddhism back in the 1970s on a trip to Nepal and India in her twenties. After returning to the United States and showing up to a meditation class, she describes becoming rapidly certain that she had found a tradition which offered thought-provoking, meaningful answers in response to th...
Nov 30, 2015•59 min
Jamyang Rinchen (蔣揚仁欽) travels in the Dalai Lama’s entourage as his principle Chinese translator. In this episode he tells us what His Holiness is like when out of the public eye and shares some special stories of occasions he has witnessed with the Dalai Lama that especially enriched Jamyang’s own faith in His Holiness—stories of genuine compassion, consideration, humility, and non-attachment. The post Jamyang Rinchen 2: My Guru, the Dalai Lama appeared first on The Wisdom Experience ....
Nov 13, 2015•48 min
Jamyang Rinchen (蔣揚仁欽) moved away from his family in Taiwan at a very young age to become a monk and study at the Dalai Lama’s Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamsala. In this first episode of two, Jamyang talks about his early life and education at a monastic institution, and how he later went on to become the Dalai Lama’s principle Chinese translator. Jamyang also tells the story of his journey to Boston to complete his doctoral degree at Harvard and shares some of the key points from h...
Oct 30, 2015•1 hr 27 min
Join us for an intimate and wide-ranging discussion with David Loy, Zen teacher and Wisdom author. David tells us how he was introduced to Buddhism, sharing stories from key points in his life and his experiences as a student of Yamada Koun and Robert Aitken. He then discusses how modern spiritual people tend to distort spiritual ideas to their own ends through a process known as spiritual bypassing, and how Buddhists today might engage with issues like the institutionalization of ignorance and ...
Oct 16, 2015•45 min
In this episode of the Wisdom Podcast, of Wisdom’s most renowned authors, translator Bhikkhu Bodhi, visits the Wisdom office. He tells his own story, painting a picture of what it was like in the days of Buddhism first coming to the West, how he encountered Buddhism, and what living in Sri Lanka in the 70s was like. He also gives some translation advice to aspiring translators and discusses his forthcoming translation of the Buddha’s teaching in the Sutta Nipata. Finally he tells us about his re...
Oct 05, 2015•44 min
Elijah Ary was the first Westerner to be recognized as the tulku (reincarnation) of a Tibetan lama in the Geluk tradition. In this episode, Elijah discusses the process of his being recognized as a tulku, the impact this has had on his life, and what he imagines his role to be in the dialogue between East and West. The post Elijah Ary: The First Western Geluk Tulku appeared first on The Wisdom Experience ....
Sep 16, 2015•1 hr 2 min
For our debut episode, Daniel travels to Dharamsala, India, to interview His Holiness the Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje. His Holiness talks about the efficacy of listening to Dharma classes, receiving empowerments, and taking ordination vows online, touching on the differences between Tibetan and traditional Western education and how each benefits from dialogue with the other. He further shares some thoughts on how Western Dharma centers could be improved; he talks about vegetarianism, including ...
Sep 03, 2015•24 min
