The Ezra Klein Show – "This Question Can Change Your Life"

Guest: Stephen Batchelor
Date: January 2, 2026
Host: Ezra Klein

Episode Overview

In this deeply reflective episode, Ezra Klein sits down with Buddhist teacher and author Stephen Batchelor for a wide-ranging conversation on cultivating doubt, maintaining openness in a polarized society, and using meditative inquiry (“What is this?”) as a personal, spiritual, and even political practice. Drawing from Zen Buddhist traditions, Socratic philosophy, and matters of modern political life, the discussion explores how uncertainty and questioning can be practices for resilience, empathy, better decision-making, and ethical living in turbulent times.

Key Themes and Discussion Points

1. The Practice of Doubt and the Power of the Question ‘What Is This?’

• Batchelor’s Retreat Experience

  • Batchelor describes a formative period (ages 27–31) spent in Korean Zen monasteries, meditating for 10–12 hours a day with the koan-like question “What is this?”.
  • He recalls how, over time, intellectual answers fell away, leading to a state of “puzzlement, curiosity, wonder, perplexity” that felt deeply embodied.
  • Quote:

    “A very good way of summing this all up is an aphorism that we find in Zen Buddhism. Great doubt, great awakening, little doubt, little awakening, no doubt, no awakening.” (Stephen Batchelor, 04:50)

• On the Sensation of Doubt

  • Batchelor explains that, as the practice develops, doubt becomes felt not only in the mind but in the body—“right down into your belly” (06:45).
  • This embodied sense of wonder opens up a more vivid, less taken-for-granted relationship with life.
  • Quote:

    “You begin to discover what they call the sensation of doubt, an actual physical feeling, as it were, that extends right down into your belly… It somehow reconnected me with the organic foundations of my life…” (Stephen Batchelor, 06:45)

• Ezra’s Challenge with Practice

  • Ezra shares that the practice initially provokes a fresh sense of doubt but quickly dulls; he asks how to keep the question alive.
  • Batchelor recommends dropping the question in when the mind is calm, letting it arise in silence rather than using it as a chant or mantra. The point is not to seek an answer, but to cultivate a “quality of inquiry” throughout all of life.
  • Quote:

    “At a certain point, I think you become rather disinterested in finding an answer, to be honest, because there is no answer in the end. That’s the secret...” (Stephen Batchelor, 09:34)

2. The Value of Doubt – Existentially, Politically, and Ethically

• Defining ‘Doubt’

  • Batchelor distinguishes between inhibiting doubt (“I don’t know if I should do this”) and ‘existential’ doubt: making life itself into a question.
  • Quote:

    “Doubt... is not that vacillation, that uncertainty which is kind of inhibiting, but rather a quality of doubt that somehow lies at a much deeper place within your experience. I might call it an existential doubt.” (Stephen Batchelor, 11:18)

• Spectrum of Doubt

  • Doubt can operate from practical uncertainties to deep questioning about the “great matter of birth and death”.
  • Doubt serves to create vital space for reflection, slowing reactivity and opening space for appropriate response.

• Doubt as a Political Virtue

  • Ezra and Batchelor discuss how certainty can narrow perspective in political and social engagement, making curiosity and dialogue impossible.
  • Quote:

    “Doubt has really been structured across your books. It’s been very present for you… the strengthening of a muscle of internal doubt is an important virtue.” (Ezra Klein, 10:40)

  • Quote:

    “Curiosity is a very essential democratic emotion. And doubt of oneself… is just enough to maintain a conversation. But if you have certainty, then there’s no reason for a conversation.” (Ezra Klein, 57:30)

3. The Four Tasks (The Practical Frame of Buddhist Ethics)

[16:10]
Batchelor describes his interpretation of the Buddha’s core teaching as “the Four Tasks”:

• Embrace Life/Suffering: Affirm and face reality, not as resignation, but as an active embrace that enables appropriate response.
  • Quote:

    “Acceptance of life, being able to say yes, this is the situation I’m in. That doesn’t mean that that situation is good or has to be somehow not responded to at all. It’s just the way the world is.” (Stephen Batchelor, 24:04)

• Let Reactivity Be: Notice and be mindful of emotional reactions, letting them be rather than suppressing or acting out.
  • Prefers “let be” to “let go,” finding it less aggressive and more consistent with mindfulness practice.
  • Quote:

    “Letting be works really well. This is, I think, at the core of mindfulness practice…if you feel a feeling of jealousy or anxiety arise in your mind, you just notice it.” (Stephen Batchelor, 30:46)

• Dwell in Non-Reactivity: Become intimate with moments of non-reactiveness, which can be found through meditation, but also in ordinary life.
  • Non-reactivity is experienced as peace—with oneself and the world.
  • Quote:

    “Non reactivity feels like an inner peace… and in the doing of that, the world is subtly transformed in a way that brings forth its richness and its wonder.” (Stephen Batchelor, 21:24)

• Cultivate a Way of Life: Use the space of non-reactivity to enact values in the world—respond rather than react.
  • The aim is not permanent stillness but ethical action aligned with context and values.
  • Quote:

    “A way of life that is not driven and inflected by these instinctive, reactive patterns, these conditioned responses of our society, but rather to be able to respond to life in a way that is according in alignment with my basic values.” (Stephen Batchelor, 21:58)

4. Doubt, Reactivity, and "Opinionatedness" in Politics

• Certainty and Reactivity in Public Life

  • Batchelor names opinionatedness as a reactive state, alongside craving and aversion; strong convictions can block conversation and reinforce tribalism.
  • The “culture of certainty” fuels polarization; loosening one’s grip on opinions can open humility and genuine dialogue.
  • Quote:

    “One of the principal forms of reactivity that we experience…is in fact our opinions and views. And…we are so convinced of the rightness of our own opinions and views…opinionatedness to me is on an equal stance with hatred and with greed.” (Stephen Batchelor, 49:00)

• Justice vs. Care—Ethical Approaches

  • Batchelor draws on Carol Gilligan’s “ethic of care,” contrasting the rule-based certainty of justice with the open-ended, situational concern of care.
  • Quote:

    “Justice and care seem to be…poles of a spectrum…Justice alone can be cruel…On the other hand…you have an ethics of care, which…tries to respond to the actual deep experience of that suffering person at that moment.” (Stephen Batchelor, 53:35)

• Political Application of Doubt and Curious Engagement

  • Maintaining a little inner doubt enables space for curiosity, dialogue, and more humane political interaction.
  • Quote:

    “A little bit of doubt just sitting at the base of your own…Am I sure what is this really right?…is just enough to maintain a conversation. But if you have certainty, then there’s no reason for a conversation.” (Ezra Klein, 57:23)

• Socratic Model of Perpetual Inquiry

  • Socrates, like the Buddha, exemplifies “an ethics of uncertainty”—a model of endlessly questioning, never reaching smug certainty.
  • Quote:

    “What united the Buddha and Socrates is that they both embodied an ethics of uncertainty, an ethics that is not founded on some metaphysical certainty… but is very much about responding appropriately to the particular situations in life we have.” (Stephen Batchelor, 60:00)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Great doubt, great awakening, little doubt, little awakening, no doubt, no awakening.”
  (Stephen Batchelor, 04:50)

• “Uncertainty gives you space. It gives you the time to ponder, to reflect, to think, to not just believe in what your mind is telling you.”
  (Stephen Batchelor, 13:57)

• “To say yes is to establish a basis from which one can then make a more appropriate response. And I don’t think this is just to do with Buddhist practice. It…has to do with how to lead a fully flourishing life.”
  (Stephen Batchelor, 25:03)

• “Curiosity is a very essential democratic emotion. And doubt of oneself…is just enough to maintain a conversation.”
  (Ezra Klein, 57:30)

• “What Socrates is famous for is this relentless probing of the interlocutor's mind and understanding, and also the relentless probing of his own mind...He will often say, actually I don't know what justice is…but I never will cease inquiring about them. And this I found very, very helpful.”
  (Stephen Batchelor, 58:57)

Key Timestamps

• 00:56 — Introduction by Ezra; theme of embracing doubt.
• 03:16 — Batchelor recounts his time as a monk and turning to Zen practice of “What is this?”
• 07:48 — The embodied quality of doubt and its effects on daily experience.
• 11:04 — Defining existential doubt versus inhibiting doubt.
• 16:10 — Introduction to the Four Tasks of Buddhist practice.
• 24:04 — Discussion on what acceptance/embracing suffering really means.
• 30:46 — Exploring “let be” vs. “let go” in dealing with strong emotions.
• 47:36 — Batchelor critiques “opinionatedness” as a reactive political state.
• 53:35 — Distinction between ethics of justice (certainty) and care (uncertainty).
• 57:30 — Ezra on curiosity, democracy, and the necessity of self-doubt.
• 58:57 — Socratic inquiry as a counterpart to Buddhist uncertainty.

Book Recommendations (64:32)

1. Children of a Modest Star: Planetary Thinking for an Age of Crises — Jonathan Blake and Nils Gilman

   • On planetary governance beyond the nation-state.

2. Work Like a Monk: How to Connect, Lead and Grow in a Noisy World — Shokei Matsumoto

   • A simple, conversational book about Buddhist values and modern living.

3. The Second Body — Daisy Hilliard

   • An essay reimagining the boundaries of the body and global empathy.

Final Reflection

The conversation closes by affirming uncertainty as an enlivening stance—not an excuse for inaction, but as the ground for presence, tolerance, and courageous, ongoing inquiry in both personal and collective life.

Quote:

“This approach makes me feel more fully alive, it enlivens me, it keeps me on my toes…in our world today…there must be another way.”
(Stephen Batchelor, 62:47)

For those seeking a practical, humane approach to uncertainty—whether in meditation, relationships, or politics—this episode offers both philosophical depth and actionable wisdom.