The Imperfect Buddha Podcast

The Imperfect Buddha podcast has been addressing anti-intellectualism and ideological capture in western Buddhism and spirituality more broadly since its inception. It provides a space for dynamic conversations designed to bring out what is so often hidden and so often despised by critics and intellectuals engaging with contemporary forms of practice. Matthew O’Connell hosts the Imperfect Buddha podcast and writes at The Imperfect Buddha site. Email: imperfectbuddha@outlook.com. Twitter: @imperfectbuddha. Facebook: @imperfectbuddha. Original street art Buddha image by Bristol's Banksy.

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128 episodes
Updated July 6

Episodes128

Newest first

May 4, 2022 · 1 hr 27 min
89 Daniel Ingram on Practice
A Conversation with Daniel Ingram
Mar 8, 2022 · 1 hr 14 min
87 Stef Aupers on Conspirituality
An interview with Stef Aupers
Mar 7, 2022 · 23 min
86 Doubt: Part 1
“Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one.” Voltaire You know too much, yet understand too little. And it’s the same for me, and everyone you and I happen to know. And, so it begins. What follows are a series of posts and audio-casts that respond to this living human condition, bringing together practice materials from non-Buddhism, post-traditional approaches to Buddhism, and the work of Peter Sloterdjik. Each post represents a visit to the Great Feast and provides ideas for practice for those who simply cannot find a home in mainstream Buddhism, Mindfulness, Atheism, or some other form of spirituality. This first part engages Socrates and the Buddha and tosses a practice salad of exciting ingredients for the hungry practitioner. It can be read and re-read here if you still have appetite for more here. Matthew O'Connell is a life coach and the host of the The Imperfect Buddha podcast. You can find The Imperfect Buddha on Facebook and Twitter (@imperfectbuddha). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 28, 2022 · 1 hr 5 min
85 Winton Higgins on Secularizing Buddhism
An interview with Winton Higgins
Jan 25, 2022 · 35 min
84 Practice Item no. 1
A Talk by Matthew O'Connell
Dec 2, 2021 · 1 hr 17 min
83 Stephen Batchelor on Secularizing Buddhism
An interview with Stephen Batchelor
Aug 10, 2021 · 1 hr 5 min
82 Richard K. Payne on Securalizing Buddhism
An interview with Richard K. Payne
Jun 26, 2021 · 30 min
81 You Need Non-Practice!
Something like a provocation, something of an introduction; this audio-cast presents a recent piece of work over at the Imperfect Buddha site on non-practice for all those interested in how to apply the non- to the practising life. Built on Complex world, Complex Practice and prior to a series on applied practice, this is the audio version of an elaboration of the opening shots of a revolutionary practice. See what you think, do the warm up and get ready for the main meal. Background music by Funki Porcini. Accompanying texts: Complex World, Complex Practice and You Need Non-Practice! Matthew O'Connell is a life coach and the host of the The Imperfect Buddha podcast. You can find The Imperfect Buddha on Facebook and Twitter (@imperfectbuddha). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 4, 2021 · 1 hr 1 min
80 Tina Rasmussen: Concentrating on Practice
An interview with Tina Rasmussen
Apr 4, 2021 · 49 min
79 Jane Affleck on the Environment and Art as Practice
An interview with Jane Affleck
Feb 21, 2021 · 1 hr 37 min
78 Glenn Wallis on Personal Practice & Anarchism
An interview with Glenn Wallis
Feb 8, 2021 · 58 min
77 Gregory Kramer on Practice
An interview with Gregory Kramer
Jan 18, 2021 · 53 min
76 Chenxing Han: Be the Refuge, Asian Buddhism in America
An interview with Chenxing Han
Jan 9, 2021 · 1 hr 16 min
75 George Haas on the Practicing Life
An interview with George Haas
Oct 30, 2020 · 1 hr 3 min
74 Being at Large with Santiago Zabala
An interview with Santiago Zabala
Oct 26, 2020 · 51 min
73 Buddhism and Magic with Sam van Schaik
An interview with Sam van Schaikd
Oct 23, 2020 · 1 hr 8 min
72 Non-Philosophy with John Ó Maoilearca
An interview with John Ó Maoilearca
Oct 19, 2020 · 13 min
71 Podcast Resurrected
"How do animals think? What does it mean to be at large? What is Buddhist Magic or even Tibetan Zen? These are questions posed by the three guests to follow in a rather lovely triad of interviews and conversations for the Imperfect Buddha Podcast; each one unique and diverse, each with a European guest, each tackling a topic that has long interested me: from non-Philosophy to Freedom in our age, from seeing Tibet without the romanticism, to the role of interpretation as a fundamental facet of existence. Mysticism, Fake News, and animals all get a look in too." Taken from this intro to the new season of a resurrected podcast. To be fair, it had never really been assigned to the tomb, but rather, was resting. With three episodes being released back to back, this super short intro provides an overview of what's to come and will help you to decide what to listen to. Matthew O'Connell is a life coach and the host of the The Imperfect Buddha podcast. You can find The Imperfect Buddha on Facebook and Twitter (@imperfectbuddha). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 12, 2020 · 16 min
70 Rethinking Practice at the Great Feast (Incite Seminar)
Rethinking Practice at the Great Feast @INCITE Seminars Saturday, July 25th, 10am-2pm EST / 4-8pm Europe /3pm-7pm UK. Online via Zoom. Come and join us on the 25th at Incite Seminars for an original workshop on Buddhism at the Great Feast for Incite Seminars. Pay what you can and dive into this experimental event online through Zoom. Description below. Western Buddhism and spirituality more broadly provide us with a rich menu of practices, messages and visions of the human condition and what is possible and even desirable to do, avoid, and strive for within a human life. Yet, as many of us have come to realize, these practices, messages and curative fantasies do not always live up to expectation. The overly prescriptive ideals of what it means to be human, what practice is, and what we should be doing with it all too often reduce the Buddhist practitioner to the role of a passive performer of tradition and can lead to a loss of faith, disenchantment, and the feeling of having been conned. Can critique and disenchantment lead us to creatively reclaim our sense of ourselves apart from tradition, and discover new lines of inquiry, practice, and ways of relating? In this hands- and minds-on workshop, we will explore the possibilities of making a new relationship to Buddhist practice through the concept of the The Great Feast of Knowledge. This concept, articulated by Glenn Wallis, asks what happens when we invite any kind of thought, practice, insight or claim to exit its ideological bubble and interact with the great, vast planes of knowledge, human struggle, and discovery that sit outside the walls of its meaning-making apparatus? What might happen if we were to bring figures like the Scottish philosopher John Grey or the postmodern concept of hyperreality into our meditation practice? What would it mean to go on retreat with the ideas of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Martin Heidegger, or the work of Social Anthropologist Tim Ingold? A key idea from Francois Laurelle that will be useful to us here is the democracy of thought, which served as an inspiration for Wallis’s Feast. Laurelle poses that all thought is equal, and for us that means that our own thought can participate at the feast if we can just muster up some courage. There is a price to pay, of course. You must expose your inner-world, and your private practice, your secret desires, needs, and fears, to the wider world and risk their disruption, and even destruction. Armed with epistemic humility and renewed curiosity, whatever happens, the Great Feast brings us back into the collective struggle of our species to come to terms with the human condition. This experimental and explorative workshop may serve to help those who are disillusioned by the whole project of Buddhism, or the spiritual, to find a way forward that remains critical but infuses personal practice with new life. Post-traditional and non-Buddhist tools will be explored initially, though we may manage to make some our own in the process. Matthew O'Connell is a life coach and the host of the The Imperfect Buddha podcast. You can find The Imperfect Buddha on Facebook and Twitter (@imperfectbuddha). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 26, 2020 · 35 min
69 The Wonkiness One (Preamble ahoy)
Ok, I went and did something a little bit different. I spoke directly to the time we live in. It may work. It may not. This is the first in a short series of audio articles. You can read the text version if you prefer over at the Imperfect Buddha site. It steers a path towards the practising life through the tumultuous times we inhabit...in stages. This is the preamble...and this is the intro to the it from the site; "And so it begins. This is clearly the preamble, but to what? A short series on the world we currently inhabit with a view to ho the practising life might engage it. Can we think away from the enticing polarised landscape we are often pulled into by social media, the media and the politics of the moment. It's not enough to remain aloof, or indifferent, so what do we do? Not, what should we do, that's not up to me, but how could we relate, openly, with curiosity, with presence, with care, with intellectual honesty, with a refusal to kowtow to the unthinking games of politics on display. Engage politically, but avoid the allure of merging with the crowd, and the cheap payoffs promised, or dive deeply into a tribe and swim in their idealogical formations and performance; both can be worth a try if you can hold your shit together as you do so. Heaven forbid I should advise you to do otherwise. What I will do though is explore out-loud, and possibly fail. Either way, I'm willing to have a go. Matthew O'Connell is a life coach and the host of the The Imperfect Buddha podcast. You can find The Imperfect Buddha on Facebook and Twitter (@imperfectbuddha). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Imperfect Buddha Podcast

89 Daniel Ingram on Practice

87 Stef Aupers on Conspirituality

86 Doubt: Part 1

85 Winton Higgins on Secularizing Buddhism

84 Practice Item no. 1

83 Stephen Batchelor on Secularizing Buddhism

82 Richard K. Payne on Securalizing Buddhism

81 You Need Non-Practice!

80 Tina Rasmussen: Concentrating on Practice

79 Jane Affleck on the Environment and Art as Practice

78 Glenn Wallis on Personal Practice & Anarchism

77 Gregory Kramer on Practice

76 Chenxing Han: Be the Refuge, Asian Buddhism in America

75 George Haas on the Practicing Life

74 Being at Large with Santiago Zabala

73 Buddhism and Magic with Sam van Schaik

72 Non-Philosophy with John Ó Maoilearca

71 Podcast Resurrected

70 Rethinking Practice at the Great Feast (Incite Seminar)

69 The Wonkiness One (Preamble ahoy)