Everyday Buddhism 117 - The Way with Henry Shukman
Everyday Buddhism: Making Everyday Better
Release Date: 07/22/2025
Everyday Buddhism 120 - I Lost My Why: A Podcast Journey
Everyday Buddhism: Making Everyday Better
Another solo podcast! This time it's about my Everyday Buddhism podcast journey and how I lost my "why." If you want to hear more about how important understanding what your why is, I talked about that in my second podcast episode, “Everyday Buddhism 2 - What is Your WHY?” The podcast has been such a meaningful space for me: A way to explore, connect, and grow with all my listeners. But more recently, I’ve noticed that the creative spark that once fueled these episodes has started to dim. I feel myself evolving and being drawn toward a wider, more spacious range of ideas and...
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Everyday Buddhism 119 - Spreading Joy
Everyday Buddhism: Making Everyday Better
It's been a long time since I've done a solo episode of this podcast and I've been getting requests for a bit more of those to include along with the guest episodes. And this episode is one of those. In this episode I reflect on the Fifth Realization from the sutra, The Eight Realizations of Great Beings. The Fifth Realization, as translated by Thich Nhat Hanh says: Ignorance is the cause of the endless rounds of birth and death. Bodhisattvas always listen to and learn from others so their understanding and skillful means can develop and so they can teach living beings and bring them great...
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Everyday Buddhism 118 - The End of Suffering with Ani Lodro Palmo
Everyday Buddhism: Making Everyday Better
It's a pleasure to share a conversation with Ani Lodro Palmo, an ordained Tibetan Buddhist nun and Director of the Vajra Vidya Monastery in Crestone, Colorado; and a spiritual teacher and author with more than three decades of monastic experience. Ani has devoted her life to spiritual practice and shares her understanding of the Dharma as an author of the books, All That Appears & Exists: The Buddha's Teachings to Awaken the Heart and Turn Suffering Into Joy and her most recent, The End of Suffering: Finding Love, Self-Compassion, and Awakening in a Chaotic World. As a recognized...
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Everyday Buddhism 117 - The Way with Henry Shukman
Everyday Buddhism: Making Everyday Better
I am excited to share this conversation with Henry Shukman, a Zen master in the Sanbo Zen lineage and spiritual director emeritus at Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Henry is the co-founder of The Way meditation app and founder of the Original Love meditation program. He is the author of the books, Original Love: The Four Inns on the Path of Awakening and One Blade of Grass: A Zen Memoir, among other award-winning and bestselling books of poetry and fiction. He has taught meditation at Google and Harvard Business School and taught poetry at the Institute of American...
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Everyday Buddhism 116 - Revisiting Koans: Releasing the Grip on "Reality"
Everyday Buddhism: Making Everyday Better
As some of you have noticed and commented on, I haven't been as active in releasing podcast episodes. A few listeners were worried about me and, for your concern, I am grateful. I plan to get back to more timely podcast releases, with quite a few on my schedule, but in the meantime, I will re-run some podcast episodes so my podcast listeners will know I haven’t disappeared … and to that end I will be releasing 2 early episodes: Episode 11 and Episode 12 on koans. I decided to re-release these two episodes on koans as a double episode for Episode 116, because I've been practicing with...
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Everyday Buddhism 115 - Unlocking the Heart with James Crews
Everyday Buddhism: Making Everyday Better
I am delighted to have another conversation with James Crews, a return guest who is joining me for a conversation about his book, Unlocking the Heart: Writing for Mindfulness, Courage, and Self-Compassion. James is the author of the essay collection, Kindness Will Save the World, and editor of several bestselling poetry anthologies, including The Wonder of Small Things (winner of the New England Book Award), Healing the Divide, The Path to Kindness (winner of the Nautilus Books for a Better Life Award), and How to Love the World, which has over 140,000 copies in print. He has been...
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Everyday Buddhism 114 - Release of My 2nd Book - Living Life As It Is
Everyday Buddhism: Making Everyday Better
This is a special episode announcing the release of my new book, as a Substack serial book: Living Life As It Is: An Honest Narrative of My Challenges Practicing Right View I started writing my second book in 2020. But along came the Covid-19 pandemic and so much after that. So here I am still writing what was to be my second book, focused on Right View. The stumbling block in getting it done was things in life kept changing faster and faster, and I had no idea whether I had any sense of Right View anymore or if I was helplessly lost in delusion. But I recently had an idea that would help me...
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Everyday Buddhism 113 - "Open" with Nate Klemp
Everyday Buddhism: Making Everyday Better
In this episode I talk with Nate Klemp, PhD. Nate is a bestselling author and formally trained philosopher. He is the author of the new book OPEN: Living With an Expansive Mind in a Distracted World. Nate is also the coauthor of the New York Times Editors’ Choice, The 80/80 Marriage: A New Model for a Happier, Stronger Marriage, and the New York Times Bestseller, Start Here: Master the Lifelong Habit of Wellbeing. He has been featured in The LA Times, The New York Times, The Times London, and has appeared on Good Morning America and "Talks" at Google. Nate co-founded the mindfulness...
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Everyday Buddhism 112 - Buddhist Response to Election Angst with Scott Snibbe
Everyday Buddhism: Making Everyday Better
In this episode I invited Scott Snibbe to join me for a conversation about Buddhist responses to the anxiety, apprehension, insecurity, fear, dread, anger … and on and on … that some people are feeling now. Scott Snibbe is a twenty-five-year student of Tibetan Buddhism whose teachers include Lama Zopa Rinpoche and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He is the author and host of the How to Train a Happy Mind book and podcast. Scott leads meditation classes and retreats worldwide in a style that will become evident in our upcoming conversation. His light-hearted approach is infused with...
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Everyday Buddhism 111 - Buddhist Psychology with Natalie Baker
Everyday Buddhism: Making Everyday Better
In this episode I talk with Natalie Baker. Natalie is a psychotherapist and Buddhist teacher, with more than 30 years of personal practice and 2+ decades of teaching experience. She is the founder of Neurofeedback Training Co. and a practicing psychotherapist in New York City, Natalie blends the wisdom of Buddhist psychology with modern therapeutic techniques, empowering individuals to navigate life's challenges with mindfulness, compassion, and resilience. Natalie teaches from the strength of her own Buddhist practice, sharing the transformative power of mindfulness and meditation with...
info_outlineI am excited to share this conversation with Henry Shukman, a Zen master in the Sanbo Zen lineage and spiritual director emeritus at Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Henry is the co-founder of The Way meditation app and founder of the Original Love meditation program.
He is the author of the books, Original Love: The Four Inns on the Path of Awakening and One Blade of Grass: A Zen Memoir, among other award-winning and bestselling books of poetry and fiction.
He has taught meditation at Google and Harvard Business School and taught poetry at the Institute of American Indian Arts. His poetry has appeared in the New Yorker and the Guardian and his essays in the New York Times, Outside, and Tricycle. Henry has a master's degree from Cambridge and a master of letters degree from St. Andrews.
As this biographical summary makes obvious, it's not like Henry hasn't been quite "discoverable", as a writer and meditation teacher but I only recently "discovered" him. And once I did, he has had a profound influence on me, as both a teacher and writer. In my conversation with him, I'll talk more about how I discovered him on Sam Harris' Waking Up app and how he became a primary teacher to me—even though we've never met—so stay tuned.
In the conversation we talked about a wide range things, including:
- The "Four Inns on the Path of Awakening", the subtitle of his book Original Love (that is "Inns", as in lodging, or in this case, a refuge or shelter on the path of meditation): Mindfulness, support, absorption, and awakening.
- Meditation as a journey, or path, rather than an intervention—as Henry said, "a journey of a lifetime."
- Kensho or seeing the timeless, primordial or non-dual awareness that is the core of our very being.
- The importance of support in your practice, whether it is a teacher, community, or friend.
- Absorption or flow states in meditation.
- And the "love" Henry refers to as something "endemic to our existence" … A great sense of belonging or union with everything.
… And much more
I know you will enjoy this conversation and Henry's clear, authentic, and gentle teaching style that I suspect will influence you, too, to bring more of Henry's guidance into your Dharma and meditation practice.
The Way meditation app
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