Awake in the World Podcast Best of Awake in the World: Radically Simple
Nov 9, 2025
Explore the radical simplicity of Buddhist practice in everyday actions, like walking and eating. Michael reads a Zen koan, linking questioning to daily mindfulness. He contrasts intellectual debate with embodied practice, highlighting the difference between reading about meditation and actually doing it. Discover how presence transforms our experience of time and how children can remind us of immediate awareness. The conversation also delves into emotional acceptance, ethical clarity through mindfulness, and the impact of suffering on our practice.
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Buddha's Everyday Instructions
- Michael Stone reads the Buddha's guidance to act in full awareness during all mundane activities.
- He emphasizes that practice includes eating, walking, talking, and sleeping as continuous opportunities to be present.
Radical Simplicity Of Practice
- Michael Stone shows that meditation's practice is radically simple and covers ordinary actions like walking and eating.
- Awareness applied to mundane acts, not peak states, is the core of practice.
South Versus Planting Rice Koan
- Stone reads a koan from The Book of Serenity about Dizang asking Zui Shan where he comes from.
- The exchange contrasts intellectualized Buddhism in the south with planting fields and making rice.
