Podcast
Pragmatic Buddhism
Hosted by Pragmatic Buddhism · EN
Welcome to Pragmatic Buddhism, a podcast offering down-to-earth Dharma talks, mindful reflections, and unscripted conversations for curious minds. We explore the intersection of ancient insight and modern life, weaving together Buddhist teachings, psychology, neuroscience, and lived experience.
Whether you're new to meditation or a longtime practitioner, this podcast invites you into a path of authentic awareness, compassionate acceptance, and wise action without dogma, jargon, or perfectionism.
29episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Is My Brain a Liar?
1w ago00:40:51Tap to summarizeMary had heart surgery in her twenties and came out with a blind spot her brain filled in. She didn't know she couldn't see this spot until someone asked why she wasn't taking pills that were sitting right in front of her. She still uses the question: "Is my brain a liar?" on herself when she assumes someone's mad at her. This week's St. Louis sangha talk starts there and moves into Thich Nhat Hanh's seven factors of awakening, a five-year-old watch someone finally took out of a box, and why pragmatic Buddhism means dealing with a bully at work instead of a hiding away in a cave in the mountains.
Transcribe →The Middle Way of Pragmatism: James, Dewey, and Why Buddhism Isn't Atheism
2w ago00:42:44Tap to summarizeWhat do you do when someone states, flatly, that God exists, or that God does not? Glenn's answer in The Middle Way of Pragmatism is to slow down. Notice when you're reacting to a claim only because it clashes with your own view. Then ask what you can actually prove. Glenn traces this through William James, the long history of atomic theory, and an old warning against accepting a claim just because someone asserts it. He's careful about the limits of the idea, too. Staying open on the big questions doesn't mean tolerating bigotry. The Columbus sangha discusses these ideas and introduces physics, the burden of proof, and more from their experiences.
Transcribe →Off Autopilot: The Mental Discipline Basket of Effort, Mindfulness, and Concentration
3w ago00:54:40Tap to summarizeDanielle of the St. Louis sangha completes a walk through the Noble Eightfold Path with the mental discipline basket: appropriate effort, mindfulness, and concentration. A short teaching opens into a candid group discussion about attention, autopilot, overwork, and what "enough effort" feels like.
Transcribe →We Let AI Write (Part of) a Dharma Talk
Jul 1700:30:25Tap to summarizeWhy do we call it Pragmatic Buddhism? Glenn of the Columbus sangha starts by discussing the Western pragmatists (Peirce, James, Dewey, and Rorty). But then he runs and experiment by asking AI to draft the rest of the dharma talk. The AI dharma talk works through some of the most pragmatic moments in the Buddhist canon (the poisoned arrow, the raft, skillful means, the two truths, and "come and see"). When discussion opens for the sangha, most focus on the AI-written talk. Several felt like they learned a lot. But Joe says he found himself taking notes as if it were a lecture and wasn't sure what to do with it by the end. Listen to the talk and ask yourself what (if?) a Dharma talk loses when there is no lived life behind the words.
Transcribe →Buddhist Ethics Without the Rulebook: Right Speech, Action, and Livelihood
Jul 1000:54:37Tap to summarizeWe all want to do the right thing but what is the "right thing"? Most people come to Buddhism hoping for a rulebook. Do these three things, avoid those five, and you'll be fine. This episode is about the ethical conduct of the Eightfold Path. It's where you'd expect to find that rullebook. But that's not how Buddhism works.Danielle and the St Louis sangha discuss skillful speech, skillful action, and skillful livelihood. What counts as skillful speech when so much of how we connect runs on so-called idle chatter? How do you find the right action when the honest answer is that it depends on the moment, and on whether you even have the capacity today? And why does "skillful livelihood" sting so much in a culture that treats overwork as proof of worth?You won't leave with a checklist. That's the point, and it's more freeing than it sounds.
Transcribe →Reacting vs. Responding: A Buddhist Take on Sport and Everyday Life
Jul 300:29:00Tap to summarizeWhat is the difference between reacting and responding, and can you train the gap between the two? In this episode, Glenn from the Columbus sangha takes Buddhist practice off the cushion and onto the ice. He treats curling as a kind of beginner practice (all those long pauses before you release the rock) and football as something more advanced, where players drill their responses so often they turn into muscle memory. Then he catches himself in a false split between a "reactive" sport and a "responsive" one and lands somewhere more useful: the only reactivity you can honestly judge is your own. The sangha picks it up from there, with the biathlete whose heart rate drops to take the shot, curling's everyperson appeal, and one father's story about snapping at a pizza app and watching his son go quiet.
Transcribe →Right View, Right Intention, and the Courage to Let Go
Jun 2600:52:06Tap to summarizeWhat does it take to see your own life clearly, and then actually act on what you see? In this episode, Danielle teaches the wisdom basket of the Eightfold Path: skillful view (often called Right View) and skillful intention (Right Intention). She walks through the Four Ennobling Realities, the Pragmatic Buddhist reframe of the Four Noble Truths, and how craving, aversion, and delusion shape what we take to be real. Then the sangha takes over. Members talk through what skillful intention looks like when it gets hard, including the courage it takes to end a friendship and still stay gentle with the person you're walking away from.
Transcribe →Compassion and Wisdom: The Two Wings of Awakening
Jun 1200:23:54Tap to summarizeIn this dharma talk from the Order of Pragmatic Buddhists, Curtis explores the relationship between compassion and wisdom, two qualities the Buddha identified as essential to awakening. Curtis argues that compassion without wisdom becomes overwhelming, and wisdom without compassion becomes hollow. The talk closes with reflections from sangha members Josh and Corey on what it means to practice compassion in real life.
Transcribe →A Pragmatic Discussion of the Eightfold Path
Jun 500:52:14Tap to summarizeWhat if Buddhism's core teaching wasn't a set of beliefs to accept, but a diagnosis and a prescription? In this dharma discussion, Danielle introduces the Four Ennobling Realities and the Eightfold Path and explains why Pragmatic Buddhism reframes "noble truths" as ennobling realities: practices you live, not doctrines you adopt. The conversation with the St Louis sangha moves from theory into real life: gossip at work, meditation that doesn't feel like it's working, what "skillful speech" actually means on a random workday.
Transcribe →You Are Not a Thing: Buddhist Wisdom on the Self We Keep Defending
May 1500:22:39Tap to summarizeWe constantly take a mood, a moment, or a memory and turn it into who we are. "I'm an anxious person." "This is just how my life goes." "That's who they are." In this talk and discussion from the Columbus sangha, Joe explores the Buddhist concept of reification (the very human habit of freezing what is fluid) and what the tradition has to say about why it leads to suffering, and how practice can help us loosen our grip. Drawing on Kalupahana's reading of early Buddhist philosophy, this conversation weaves together the five aggregates, non-self, and sitting meditation into something practical and immediately recognizable. If you've ever noticed that the story you're telling about yourself might be more constructed than it seems, this one's for you.
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