the DharmaRealm

Podcasting while sheltering in place. We’re going to restart the DharmaRealm, recording via Zoom, shorter episodes, and posting here, SoundCloud, YouTube, and, as always, your favorite podcastin...

The nerds nerd out about nerdy things! Specifically, a couple of Buddhist Studies scholars (nerds) discuss (nerd out) what it means to be a Buddhist Studies scholar (nerdy things). It’s our third and...

It’s our second episode with our special guest, Dr. Natalie Fisk Quli. We’re continuing our conversation about authenticity, this time around beginning with a conversation about merit, merit accumula...

We’ve got a special guest today! Dr. Natalie Fisk Quli is a teacher at the Institute of Buddhist Studies, author, and co-editor of a couple of books with Scott. She’s joining us today to discuss the ...

In a weird way, this is sort of part-two of our post-truth conversation since we’re tackling a perennial problem in the contemporary study and practice of Buddhism — can we know what the historical B...

I didn’t want to talk about flat earth or post-truth or aliens! But Harry made me!  Anyway. If you listen to this episode, you’ll get an earful of Star Trek, X-Files, aliens, conspiracy theories,...

Faith! We’re bouncing off a question about faith in our personal experience with Buddhism. Now, we know that having said faith, half of you said “There’s no faith in Buddhism!” And the other half said...

A little while back we did an episode on no self and identity — and what do you know? It was wildly popular. Go us. So we decided to come back to the issue. But we’re not gonna deal with identity; we’...

Somewhat in response to a listener question, we dive into the question of practice versus academic study. Is there a difference between academic study and the practice of Buddha? Is one more valuable ...

Hooray! It’s been ten years since we started this show, and this is our 100th episode! We hit the highlights in this one, themes and topics we’ve touched on several times over the years, including how...

In today’s episode, we respond to a listener question about the possibility, in Shin Buddhism, of reconciling the concept of no-self (anatman) and personal identity (especially in regards to race). To...

Scott’s still got a cold! And he’s a cranky old man who wants to argue with people! So today we’ll try to come up with the Buddhist answer to everything. Not really. Long time listeners should know by...

For our first full episode of 2018 we tackle a listener question about Buddhism and social justice, jumping off from the tension between accepting things as they are and the urge to stand up to inequa...

We’re back! Here’s a teaser to wet your appetite. We’ve got a couple of other episodes in the can that we’ll release this month. And we’re only a few episodes shy of our ...

One more episode recorded in October before the election but on a topic that will most certainly continue to be of importance in the year ahead – race, racism, and American Buddhism. This one’s ...

Happy Christmas (if that’s your thing – if not then Happy Winter Holiday of Your Choosing)! So, head’s up. We recorded this episode way back in early October and are only just now getting around...

Announcement: we’re doing a “live” show on Saturday August 20 during the CBE’s Pacific Seminar. Check out the the CBE’s website for more information, and send us your questions via Facebook or Twitter...

Right off the bat, pretty sure I goofed the origin story of the word “meh” and its reference in The Simpsons. I’m sure someone out there will correct me in the comments. If you can get through the fir...

Buddhism and Introspection: in which we ramble on for a time about the extent to which Buddhism is introspective, about controlling, watching, or purifying the mind, an extended exercise in trying har...

Jumping off from our conversation about utopia and Star Trek from our last episode, this time around we’re diving deep into questions of belief and interpretation and how to approach the mythological ...

I’ll be honest. We spent the first half of this episode geeking out on Star Trek, talking about how this vision of a utopian future hinges on the civilizing influence of an alien culture and that the ...

Picking up where we left off (in our D&D episode), we wrestle again with the questions and challenges of Buddhist ethics. We begin with the assumption that a basic Buddhist ethical framework is ba...

That title should really be “Dungeons and Dragons (and Ethics).” Or “D&D, Star Wars, and Cats (with some Buddhism sprinkled in).” In our first episode for 2016, we wanted to begin a conversation a...

The rumors of deaths have been greatly exaggerated....

In response to a listener question, we discuss the variety of Pure Land practices outside the Shin and Japanese traditions. We begin by noting that Honen and Shinran set up distinct schools and instit...

Following up on our conversation from last time, we tackle a list of listener questions that we thought would be simple but took us off in really different directions. The first question is whether or...

In response to a bunch of listener questions that we thought would be pretty straightforward, we bring you several episodes to discuss, first, the differences between Japanese Buddhist schools of Jodo...

Reflecting on the sad news of Rev. Dr. Taitetsu Unno’s passing this past month, we thought we’d do a special short episode to acknowledge his influence in our own lives as well as appreciating our goo...

Okay. Some big questions this time around, none of which we’re gonna answer but we have a good time talking around the issues. Does (Shin) Buddhism give us a way to act? Are there guidelines on how to...

We’re doing a post-modern meta show about the show where we talk about the show. It’s been six years, this is episode number eighty, and we want to take stock and talk about what we’ve done and where ...

Just gonna say it up front: Harry’s on fire in these episodes, saying some profound stuff! In this final installment of our reflections on Shin and Zen practice, we take up the issue of other-power/se...

We take up the issue from last time, wandering around the historical circumstances of exclusive practice, Kamakura-era Buddhist schools, deal with how the context in which one practices matters, ritua...

Hey! Check out that new theme song! We finally get around to doing some recording and answering some listener questions, this one about the possibility of combining Shin and Zen Buddhist practice. We ...

Our third and final episode with special guest Mushim Ikeda from the East Bay Meditation Center. In this show, we use the current popularity of mindfulness based meditation practices (and their secula...

Here’s part two of our conversation with Mushim Ikeda of the East Bay Meditation Center. We jump right in from where we left off in the last episode, trying to answer the question of “Why Buddhism?” (...

Today is part one of a three-part series of episodes featuring our very first special guest star, Mushim Ikeda. Mushim is a Buddhist teacher, author, mentor and the community coordinator and a core te...

We’re not talking about magicians, we’re talking about ritual and whether or not there is some efficacious power inherent in Buddhist ritual practice. Ritual is often derided by modern folks or reject...

One of the issues that came up in our last conversation was the idea of “original enlightenment,” or the idea that from an enlightened point of view, everything’s equal. Today we tak...

Is the BCA silent on issues of social justice? For many, it might seem like there’s no Shin Buddhist public voice in the American  discourse on Buddhism and social justice. We’ve been aske...

In prepping for our last episode on how to do Shin Buddhist practice, we started thinking about why people do practice and the question of motivations. The conversation starts with a reflection on a c...

We’re back! And we’re taking up a listener question about practicing Buddhism when you’re not near a Shin community, so we’re calling this one “how to do Shin practice?&#...

We round out our conversation about music by focusing on Shin Buddhism, starting with Shinran. It’s clear chanting was an important part of early Shin communities, and many of Shinran’s wa...

In part two of our discussion of Buddhism and music, we talk (mostly) about the potential genre of “Buddhist music.” Genre is a tricky; it raises all sorts of questions about who gets to d...

We’ve got a long-standing interest in music; coincidentally, a listener asked us a question about music on Facebook, so we took the subject and ran with it! This is the first of three episodes d...

“Won’t somebody please think of the children!” This week we take up the tension in Buddhism between the ideal of monasticism, the renunciant, the solo practitioner who goes off in se...

Let’s pick up where we left off; last time we discussed how contemporary Shin Buddhists can make the teachings and practices applicable to modern life, balancing tradition and change. This raise...

Prompted by a listener who’s interested in how Buddhist teachings and practices change over time, in this episode we take up the tension between maintaining tradition versus adaptation to new ci...

Today we go down the rabbit hole of the Tannisho, the so-called razor text of Shin Buddhism, a text that can cut away misunderstandings, or be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands! Specifically, we&...

In this episode, Scott complains about the media! Seriously, though, bouncing from the last episode that dealt with the commodification and commercialization of Buddhism, we now deal with the related ...

Someone tried to sell some shoes with an image of the Buddha on them. And, boy, were Buddhists mad about it! This is our jumping off point for a discussion about commercialization and the commodificat...