In this episode, I talk with Emma Varvaloucas, an editor and writer with a decade+ focusing on discovering and publicizing underreported good news in the nonprofit media space. Emma is the executive director of The Progress Network, where she writes the popular What Could Go Right? weekly newsletter and is co-host of the What Could Go Right? podcast. She was formerly the executive editor of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review , and the editor of two books from Wisdom Publications. In a wide-ranging co...
Feb 14, 2023•1 hr 18 min•Ep 85•Transcript available on Metacast Enjoy a special release of a Members Only Feature: Bonus Contemplation Podcasts. These are short podcasts for you to use as subjects for contemplation or analytical meditation. I've released this contemplation, "Impermanence", as a birthday gift to my podcast audience, in celebration of my 70th birthday. It is by my friend and fellow Buddhist teacher, Kaspa Thompson. It purposely follows the episode, "Navigating Grief and Loss" by Kimberly Brown. Kaspa directs the Bright Earth with their partner...
Jan 12, 2023•10 min•Ep 84•Transcript available on Metacast Enjoy a special release of a Members Only Feature: Bonus Contemplation Podcasts. These are short podcasts for you to use as subjects for contemplation or analytical meditation. I've released this contemplation, "The Five Remembrances", as a birthday gift to my podcast audience, in celebration of my 70th birthday. It is by my dear friend and Everyday Buddhism Sangha Leader, Bradley Jinaiyo Nussbaum. It purposely follows the episode, "Navigating Grief and Loss" by Kimberly Brown. I am publicly rel...
Jan 12, 2023•11 min•Ep 83•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, I celebrate my 70th birthday, which was yesterday, with the release of 2 special bonus contemplations on impermanence. I saved a couple of Members-only bonus episodes for release following episode 81, "Navigating Grief and Loss" with Kimberly Brown. They are Impermanence with Kaspa Thompson (Inspired by Shan Tao) and "The Five Remembrances" with Bradley Jinaiyo Nussbaum. I know many of you have more of your life ahead of you rather than behind you, the truth is, we can never kno...
Jan 12, 2023•4 min•Ep 82•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, I talk with Kimberly Brown about her new book, Navigating Grief and Loss: 25 Buddhist Practices to Keep your Heart Open to Yourself and Others , where she shares an approachable pathway to personal and collective well-being through real-life, contemporary meditations based on traditional practices. We talk about the power of love for reducing mental suffering … the illusion of control and remembering things are not all up to us … being present for and taking care of anger and ot...
Dec 28, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Ep 81•Transcript available on Metacast In this special "best of" episode, we celebrate Bodhi Day, the traditional celebration of the historical Buddha Shakyamuni's enlightenment. Yet, listen as we discover how it is a celebration of our enlightenment, too. The message of the December darkness is a messenger of our own enlightenment. Without darkness, we couldn't know light. Shakyamuni's enlightenment experience is ours. He proclaimed, "I and the great earth, and all beings are naturally and simultaneously awakened." We don't chase th...
Dec 07, 2022•22 min•Ep 80•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, I get lost in a conversation with Deborah Eden Tull, who I wished I could have talked with for hours! Deborah Eden Tull is a Zen meditation and dharma teacher, author, public speaker, and sustainability educator. In our conversation we discuss her latest book, Luminous Darkness: An Engaged Buddhist Approach to Embracing the Unknown , a deep book bridging the Dharma, personal awareness, and transformation—through the lens of darkness and all that word connotes, like uncertainty, ...
Nov 22, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Ep 79•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, I have a far-ranging and fascinating conversation with Melissa Moore, Ph.D., a teacher of Buddhism and Contemplative Psychology. In it we talk about her book, The Diamonds Within Us: Uncovering Brilliant Sanity Through Contemplative Psychology , a treasure of a book that weaves the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism with psychology, producing a guidebook of real-life practices to address our internal struggles and the reactions we have to the daunting times we live in. I know you'll ...
Oct 28, 2022•1 hr 15 min•Ep 78•Transcript available on Metacast I am honored to present this podcast episode with Rev. Marvin Harada, the Bishop of the Buddhist Churches of America. In it we discuss what makes Shin Buddhism a truly "everyday Buddhism", meditation, mindfulness, chanting, ritual, and about the teachers we have in common and what made them special. I know you'll enjoy this talk with Rev. Harada as much as I did talking with him. He is down-to-earth and delightful, if you can't tell by his giggle! if you've never heard of Shin Buddhism—or don't ...
Oct 13, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep 77•Transcript available on Metacast Enjoy another special preview of a Members Only Feature: Bonus Contemplation Podcasts. These are short podcasts for you to use as subjects for contemplation or analytical meditation. This contemplation, "Loved Just As I Am", is by my dear friend, Satya Robyn, and purposely follows the episode where I share my journey into baldness due to Alopecia Areata. Satya directs the Bright Earth with her partner, Kaspa, and works as a psychotherapist and a writer. These bonus contemplation podcasts will be...
Sep 22, 2022•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, I share my journey into baldness caused by Alopecia Areata. September is Alopecia Awareness month, so I'm happy to share this episode now. No matter what our hair looks like or changes to, we are never satisfied. Hair seems one of the most prominent marks of our self. We seem uniquely attached to our hair as self. My hair loss first started in mid-December 2021, then paused and seemed to start growing back, then in April it was on a steady downward trend. And by July, I began to...
Sep 20, 2022•30 min•Ep 76•Transcript available on Metacast Join me for a conversation with Jack Huynh, a long-time Buddhist practitioner and the founder of the https://beyondthecushion.com/ website. Jack is a first-generation immigrant to the U.S. from the Vietnam War and found his own path in the Dharma, different from his parents who are also Buddhist practitioners. Jack's website explores the diversity of Buddhist lay practice in a complex modern life. The idea for it was born from Jack's own curiosity and longing to ask lay practitioners about their...
Aug 22, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Ep 75•Transcript available on Metacast Join me for a special summer mirror episode of the podcast, Zen At The Sharp End by Mark Westmoquette where I was invited to talk about my experience with "troublesome Buddhas." The Zen At The Sharp End podcast focuses on how to turn difficult people and relationships into your best teachers. In each episode, Mark and guests discuss how Buddhist and mindfulness practices can help us see our difficult people or situations as troublesome Buddhas, our greatest teachers. I am sharing this episode of...
Jul 20, 2022•40 min•Ep 74•Transcript available on Metacast Join me for a very special conversation with Ashley Lynn Olson, the author of the book, Confined to Align , and the author of a life that has consistently defied the odds. And that is, in no small part, due to her unbelievable spirit and ability to steer her thoughts, emotions, … and her life into the positive. As you will hear, Ashley has overcome obstacles in her life that would knock many of so far down we would have trouble ever looking up again , including a car accident that killed her fat...
Jul 16, 2022•1 hr 20 min•Ep 73•Transcript available on Metacast Join me for a conversation with Arlene Faulk, as we talk about the ups and downs of living with the symptoms, diagnosis, and eventual healing of Multiple Sclerosis. Arlene went from a career as business executive to a calling as a Tai Chi teacher. Arlene captured her dramatic personal story in a memoir, Walking on Pins and Needles: A Memoir of Chronic Resilience in the Face of Multiple Sclerosis. Faulk recounts how she regained mobility, embraced the power of Tai Chi, and took back control of ...
Jun 16, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Ep 72•Transcript available on Metacast In the next two episodes, Episode 72 and Episode 73, I am in conversation with two amazing women who demonstrate with their lives how we can actively accept what seems unacceptable. Although these episodes represent something out of the ordinary for this podcast, they illustrate, in sharp detail, how everything changes and things that we don't want to happen to us WILL happen to us. After these two episodes, look for another Bonus Contemplation on the Five Remembrances for members of the Communi...
Jun 16, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Enjoy a preview of a NEW Members Only Feature: Bonus Contemplation Podcasts. These are short podcasts for you to use as subjects for contemplation or analytical meditation. They will be released regularly and presented by myself or some of my Bright Dawn Lay Minister/lay ministry student friends and colleagues. To be sure you don't miss any of them, join the Everyday Buddhism Membership Community: Join the Membership Community or the Everyday Sangha: Join the Everyday Sangha...
Jun 10, 2022•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Rev. Gyomay Kubose, my teacher's father, wrote about "purposeless purpose." He said: "T oo much intelligence or too much efficiency can create trouble. So, we must learn non-intelligence, which is super intelligence. " Does that sound nonsensical? Our sangha is studying The Diamond Sutra now and it is filled with reasoning (or non reasoning?) like that. It is the the superpower of the Dharma because the wisdom it contains is transcendent. You can't "get there" from here, by what is normally cons...
Jun 09, 2022•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the past year I've noticed a feeling of "disappearing" in the world ... and to the world. A sense of my slipping relevance to the people and world around me. Yet, the good news about seeming to disappear is that it reveals the absolute truth of things as they are. Am I disappearing or am I transcending? It's a simple twist of the head. A change in perception. A change in awareness that I realize through an understanding of emptiness, Japanese psychology, and the experience of meditation. List...
Apr 30, 2022•24 min•Ep 70•Transcript available on Metacast My teacher, mentor, and friend, Rev. Sunnan Koyo Kubose passed away suddenly last month. In his honor, I'm replaying Episode 20, a special interview with him, as the first of a series of episodes dedicated to honoring my teachers. It is through Bright Dawn and my Sensei, I learned how to bring Buddhism into the everyday. Listen as we discuss what the Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism and its Lay Ministry program is all about, from Rev. Koyo's perspective ... its historical influences, its m...
Apr 10, 2022•1 hr 24 min•Ep 69•Transcript available on Metacast Join me for a delightful conversation with Vanessa Sasson who told the Buddha's story in a way you probably never heard it. She masterfully places you in the lives of Siddhartha and his wife, Yasodhara, as Siddhartha comes to grips with suffering for the first time. His obsession with ridding the world of the suffering that so many accept as part of life, is his calling. Sasson's calling was to write this story, based on her many years of study, as a Buddhist and religious scholar, but—most impo...
Mar 09, 2022•2 hr 31 min•Ep 68•Transcript available on Metacast Join me for a fascinating conversation with Arthur Brooks, where we talk about two of his 12 books, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America From the Culture of Contempt and From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life , his new book just released this week. Because we talk about both books, it is a wide-ranging conversation, but I think I can summarize it by using Arthur's words from this episode. He talks about how we see ourse...
Feb 19, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep 67•Transcript available on Metacast In this podcast, I talk with Pamela Patton, Director of Pastoral Ministries for All Souls NYC. Pamela is a both a Unitarian Universalist and a Buddhist and she founded the Buddhism and Mindfulness program at the popular Unitarian Universalist church, All Souls, in Manhattan. In a wide-reaching conversation, we talked—among other things—about how important it is to keep your own practice strong if you want to help others. I think this is just as important for all of us to keep in mind, as it is f...
Feb 07, 2022•2 hr 36 min•Ep 66•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, we celebrate the Winter Solstice, Bodhi Day, and the light of the Buddha's Promise, meaning our enlightenment, too. The message of the December darkness is a messenger of our own enlightenment. As Bhikkhu Bodhi wrote, "having discovered for himself the perfect peace of liberation, he kindles for us the light of knowledge, which reveals both the truths that we must see for ourselves and the path of practice that culminates in this liberating vision." We don't chase the darkness a...
Dec 21, 2021•31 min•Ep 65•Transcript available on Metacast Join me for an absorbing and inspiring conversation with someone who I now consider a personal teacher : Kaira Jewel Lingo, the author of the just-released book, We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons on Moving Through Change, Loss, and Disruption. Kaira Jewel is a gentle voice that quietly shares the deepest wisdom in the simplest way. It is my favorite kind of teaching. It shifts and moves inside you until you say ah-ha! And all the while you don't feel taught. I've used her book and her In...
Nov 05, 2021•1 hr 22 min•Ep 64•Transcript available on Metacast In this special repeat episode, we'll look at the overlaps between the pagan origination, rituals, and concepts of Halloween and Tibetan Tantric or Vajrayana Buddhism ... and also examine it all from an Everyday Buddhism perspective. What scares you? What do you NOT want to look at? What masks do you wear? Do you show yourself as someone without a shadow or demon side? Is the so-called "spirituality" we want, we crave, and grasp onto something that is both grounded while reaching to the sky? Bud...
Oct 30, 2021•28 min•Ep 63•Transcript available on Metacast I can't stop talking about equanimity. So this episode is about the magic power of equanimity. What is it? Why is it important all the the time, but especially now? And how do we get it? As I've mentioned in previous episodes, I've been focusing my practice on developing equanimity and compassion. In this episode, I share some of the things that have been helping me find balance and a bit more spaciousness from the "crazy" during this time where I believe we all feel like our lives have been up-...
Oct 24, 2021•27 min•Ep 62•Transcript available on Metacast Join me for a conversation with Scott Snibbe, the host of the podcast, A Skeptic's Path to Enlightenment . Enjoy a free-flowing conversation between two long-time Buddhist practitioners and podcast hosts as we talk about the power of Buddhism and meditation to help enhance our good qualities, make us happier, and—ultimately—help make those around us happier. Enjoy Scott's easy and fun style of explaining Buddhism and meditation. It will make you a believer if you weren't already. Like the smilin...
Sep 23, 2021•1 hr 27 min•Ep 61•Transcript available on Metacast To reiterate the obvious, life has been hard lately. Depressing and a struggle for many and devastating for so many others. All this suffering around us: plagues, violence, floods, fires. And those of you who follow this podcast know, I've been looking at how we might find a way to help ourselves and others through all this from many different Buddhist-oriented approaches. Finally, though, I personally came back to a practice and an attitude from my many years of Tibetan Buddhist study and pract...
Aug 26, 2021•23 min•Ep 60•Transcript available on Metacast Join the conversation with one of my first teachers, Frank Howard, as we talk about a little book called The 37 Practices of Bodhisattvas . I first met this book at the Dharma Center Frank directs and teaches, where His Eminence Garchen Rinpoche is a visiting teacher. Garchen Rinpoche says the entire Buddhist path can be found in the little book of The 37 Practices of Bodhisattvas . Rinpoche had one of the little books in one hand and his prayer wheel in the other hand. I've read these 37 practi...
Aug 09, 2021•1 hr 21 min•Ep 59•Transcript available on Metacast 
