Ep. 140 - Equanimity Feels Different on a Roller Coaster
The Road Home with Ethan Nichtern
Release Date: 04/07/2025
Ep. 153 - You Won’t Heal Until You Love It : Inside The Neurological Storm with Reggie Hubbard
The Road Home with Ethan Nichtern
16 months ago, yoga/meditation/sound teacher Reggie Hubbard had a near-death experience, a major stroke. He visits the podcast to describe the experience of his "neurological storm" and the path of collapse and healing that he's been on ever since, and how it has profoundly affected his views as a practitioner, teacher, and his views of the neurological storm that the United States and the world is currently experiencing. If there's such a thing as a "must-listen" episode of this podcast, this it it. Reggie Hubbard is a senior political strategist, certified yoga and meditation teacher,...
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Ep. 152 - Crucial Questions: What Is The Bodhisattva Vow?
The Road Home with Ethan Nichtern
Ethan discusses three reasons we take vows and make commitments from a Buddhist perspective, and gives special emphasis to The Bodhisattva Vow, where we commit to not only pursue our own path of liberation and awakening, but also vow to work for the benefit of all beings, to the limits of space, until all beings are awake. It is a commitment to the collective liberation of all beings. Of course, this is impossible (at least in our lifetimes), so why would we agree to do it? Using the classic structure of the vow, along with modern commentary, Ethan dissects the reasons we would take on such a...
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Ep. 151 - Buddhist Geeks, 21st Century Practice, and The Duhkha of Palestine
The Road Home with Ethan Nichtern
Ethan welcomes Co-Founder, teacher, and Palestinian-American Dharma teacher . They discuss the rise of "podcast dharma" in the early 21st century, Vince's path to Vince's experience of his Palestinian heritage, why it's hard to get Dharma teachers to speak out about the genocide in Gaza, The Buddhist practice of , and the complex legacy of Chogyam Trungpa and Tibetan refugees in relation to the Palestinian experience. is part of a new generation bringing dharma, meditation, & mindfulness to life in the 21st century. A computer engineering dropout turned full-time meditator, Vince...
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Ep. 150 - The Virtues of Boredom (The Most Boring Podcast Ever!)
The Road Home with Ethan Nichtern
This is the 150th episode of The Road Home Podcast! Yay, Big Deal! But, it’s—as always—also a conversation about the Dharma, and the mind, and how to work with your own experience. And your mind, especially during meditation, can be boring. Very boring. So why is boredom such a difficult, yet important—and creative—experience? What do we do about boredom in meditation practice, as well as boredom in daily life? Using a teaching on working with boredom in three stages, along with teachings from earliest Buddhism on the “hindrance” of restlessness, Ethan unpacks the creative power...
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Ep. 149 - The Whole World Is Gold To Me: Tantra and Generosity
The Road Home with Ethan Nichtern
(This episode of The Road Home is dedicated to the memory of —founder of the Eco-Dharma and Deep Ecology Movements—who passed this weekend at the age of 96) On this episode, a follow-up to episode 148, Ethan explores wealth and generosity from a tantric perspective. If you could take the view, for just one moment, that you, your perceptions, and your world were all perfect in being exactly what they were, how would that change your experience of yourself, your resources, and your participation in society? What is generosity (“dana” in the Buddhist languages) from a Tantric perspective?...
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Ep. 148 - No More Billionaires - Wealth, Livelihood and Generosity in the Hinayana and Mahayana
The Road Home with Ethan Nichtern
What is generosity (“dana” in the Buddhist languages), and how does it relate to our experience of wealth, our consumption, our labor, and our shared values as a society? How can we work with our craving for always have more like one of those a metal claw machines in a video game arcade, leaving us unable to live in the practice of Dana, or "fluid exchange" with our experience? Similarly, how do we create a society that acknowledges the sacredness of labor and the social benefits of collective generosity? How can we as a society generate wealth without the fixation to hoard billions of...
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Ep. 147 - Don’t Stop Believing - Faith and Awareness in The Six Bardos of Collapse and Rebirth
The Road Home with Ethan Nichtern
How we work with our minds in the spaces between collapse and rebirth (those uncomfortable gaps in life as well as the huge “gap” after death) hold the key to creating futures that do not replicate the stuckness and suffering of our past. This is true both personally and collectively. As always, with recent world events in mind, we discuss the six bardos of classic Tibetan Buddhism, as well as the three qualities we need to effectively navigate the space between the death of what was and the birth of what will be. Please support the podcast via and subscribe for free or with small monthly...
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Ep. 146 - The Dissonance of 2025
The Road Home with Ethan Nichtern
Ethan visits a recurrent conversation he’s been having with his students, his friends, and within his own mind: the dissonance between feeling like your personal life and close community are in basically good places, while simultaneously raising your gaze to see the immense suffering and chaos of the world. How can we hold those two and find our compassion and skillful means? Framing thoughts around the massive ICE raids that are tearing families apart, followed by the subsequent mass protests in Los Angeles and across the country, Ethan examines how we can remain grounded in our own beings...
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Ep. 145 - Always Meditate on Whatever Provokes Resentment
The Road Home with Ethan Nichtern
What is resentment? Why is it so corrosive? How can we work with our resentments? How can we overcome a victim mentality while still protecting ourselves, protecting others, and protecting truth? In this solo episode, uses a classic Tantric Buddhist contemplative slogan from the Lojong mind training tradition that translates as either “Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment” or “stay close to your resentment.” Enjoy the listen! Ethan’s most recent book, was just awarded a gold medal in the 2025 Nautilus Book Awards. You can to order a signed copy....
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Ep. 144 - Microdosing Grief and The Practice of Saying Goodbye
The Road Home with Ethan Nichtern
In a spontaneous episode, Ethan discusses grief and loss while processing multiple events. At a recent compassion meditation retreat, colleague and friend René Fay gave a presentation where she discussed the need to “Microdose Grief,” to take it in little by little so that we can honor the small moments of loss to develop familiarity with the experience when the big waves come. Through remembering the life and the recent death of a dharma friend, Ethan explores a famous buddhist quote about impermanence (“The Cup Is Already Broken”) and explores how grief can be used as a tool for...
info_outlineAfter tariffs were broadly imposed by the current American regime (including, apparently on uninhabited islands populated mostly by penguins) causing a nearly unprecedented crash of the stock market, and after attending the lovely and unexpectedly massive protest marches that took place on April 5, Ethan ponders how to deal with extreme states of mind with a world on a roller coaster marked by fear and greed. The key, he says, is to be able to differentiate between arising mental emotions and the awareness that contains and welcomes them, and then to continuously generate compassion for all human beings. He offers two simple questions we can each ask ourselves when we encounter intense states of mind as humanity's roller coaster ride become increasingly topsy turvy—and perhaps increasingly hopeful—in the months ahead.
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Notes:
To find further explanation of the eight worldly winds, check out Ethan's latest book Confidence: Holding Your Seat Through Life's Eight Worldly Winds or the adapted essay in Lion's Roar Magazine.