In a time of environmental meltdown, political and economic crisis, what should we do? What role can practice play? How are we to envision our place in the world, as protagonists in the destruction of our home, and mere bit part players in global conflict? Can we make a difference, or should we retreat to our personal spaces and meditate and be done with it? This new episode of the podcast explores such big themes and the work of Brooke D. Lavelle and Zachary Walsh, our two guests, as we take a look at the bifurcated road ahead of us; a Great Transition, or a Great Collapse await. While many of us may like to see life continue on as usual, I think most folks are starting to realise that business as usual is killing us slowly. It is time to make change move in a direction that sees us and the many species surviving this century, but practice remains, as Sloterdjik would remind us, and the big picture is always grounded in the lives of practitioners in this conversation. We discuss such uncomfortable topics as love, care, practice and transformation. We touch on environmentalism, activisms, but also the underlying themes challenging these worlds of work at present and the need to both practice and think and imagine the world differently. 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

Our year long-series on practice continues and we stray further into the world of politics and economics with this episode's guest. Economics is a form of human practice of course, and not a solid, eternal fixed inevitability. Like politics, it's a topic often resisted by spiritual and religious folks. In a democracy, we would all do well to educate further on this topic, so why not combine a conversation on Buddhism and economics? That's just what we have done in this episode with Clair Brown, who is an economist at U.C. Berkeley. In this episode we discuss Buddhist Economics, the name of her book on the topic. Clair has been active in seeking to construct and teach alternatives to the free market, neo-liberal economic model we are still living under and Buddhism, along with the work of E.F. Schumacher, plays a role. Using real world evidence and data, she has been developing policies towards an economics more suited to our 21st century plight and a reduction of suffering globally. Clair has a dedicated website on the topic with a reading group section for those interested in working with her book. 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

Professor of philosophy, religion and integral ecology, at San Francisco University, Sam Mickey is our guest in this episode. We tackle many a topic but return throughout to the theme of the Great Feast, and embodiment, in facing existential threat, and environmental decay. We tackle the theme of justice too. Many of the themes connect to titles of his books including; On the verge of a Planetary Civilisation: A Philosophy of Integral Philosophy, and the wonderfully demanding title, Co-existentialism and the Unbearable Intimacy of Ecological Emergency. Do not panic, however, Sam is a wonderful conversationalist and shares my own hopeful outlook on our future, and this is evident throughout. He also anticipates a future conversation with the ever-present Daniel Ingram in which we will tackle integral theory and the work of Ken Wilber. 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

It took a long time to get this one done and I hope it was worth it. Please note that the creative extras took up very little of that time, rather, it was finding a way to talk about big issues as a living practice beyond partisan politics and ideological capture. This podcast episode tackles politics as living culture and suggests that complexity marks our age in a way that we cannot ignore, but almost always do. From Twitter to CNN and Fox News, very little thought seems to go into public discourse these days. It's all about the hits, whether emotional or site visits. This podcast episode invites you to change games and provides you with some tools for doing so. It also offers some meta positions on it all & doesn't forget to include Buddhism in the discussion. It will no doubt disappoint some, excite others, anger a few, and turn off others. For some of you, it may be a small act of sanity in a world going increasingly off the rails.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

It's been another busy period but finally it's time for Cleo Kearn's interview to be released into the world before I head off on holiday. Ritual and Resistance is the title of our conversation as we tackle ritual, religion, Buddhism, resistance and change. We discuss the following topics in the first half; Continental Philosophy, Anthropology and Religion, religious sacrifice, Shamanism and Catholicism, Durkheim and Lacan. And then go deep into discussing ritual; its ubiquity, its role in societies, why some survive and others don't, its role in social formation and dissolution, freeing and managing desire, selfhood, challenges to ritual in our age, Buddhism and Tantra, death, activism, innovation and more. Enjoy! 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

Are we all going down it too? Daniel Ingram returns to the podcast for a third and final conversation and what a rich one it was. I believe it is well worth your time. After reading some Trash Theory, Daniel accepted Glenn Wallis’s challenge to read his book and after exploring the infamous SNB heuristic, based on the work of the rascally Frenchman Francois Laruelle, he came in for round three. We go back to the heuristic that started off the Trash Theorising, touching on Decision, Sufficiency, and the Great Feast of Knowledge, before exploring novel takes on refuge, philosophy and practice. The first two recordings have solicited quite a lot of reaction from folks on Facebook and Twitter and at the Post-Traditional Buddhism blog. This includes Tom Wooldrige who has a new blog dedicated, it seems, to critiquing Daniel’s Pragmatic Dharma approach from a psychological perspective that has stimulated reaction too. Subsequently Evan Thompson has chimed in on Daniel’s views, as has David Chapman, and Glenn Wallis. This is a sort of eruption and a sign of the feast taking place. I argue that we need more of these kinds of conversations. Let’s see what you think after hearing this final one in this series. 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

You’ve had the initial goods and as promised here’s the second helping of Mr Daniel Ingram. This conversation gets right to the point and tackles, in a rather condensed and humble manner, a work of collective, creative production over at the Speculative non-Buddhism site called Trash Theory; an exploration of practice beyond decision, beyond enchantment, beyond capture. Well, that’s the plan anyway. We start out with a quick chat about the SNB, x-Buddhism and non-Buddhism, before going through a number of postulates, or principles for practice, that have been explored and are continuing to be developed by Glenn Wallis and company. We went through it pretty quickly as we just had an hour to play with, but it was fun and an interesting exploration that will be continued in a follow up conversation to be recorded this Thursday. You’ll find a link to the original post we worked from below, though there are, at the time of writing, six posts on the theme at hand. This one is a good start for the curious and it’s pretty accessible. Both episodes with Daniel feature the same introduction so if you have already heard the first conversation, you will want to skip it. It’s possible that Dan and I will tackle some of Ken Wilber’s work in the follow up to Trash Theory, so if you have any insights into why Wilber was full of it, or specific points that underline problems with Ken’s work more generally, let me have them, as I have only a superficial reading of his work and never felt motivated to read beyond a general introduction to his ideas, which seem pretty simplistic, though potentially useful. Either way, enjoy this turn of events as we continue to dive into practice on this season of the Imperfect Buddha Podcast. 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

After the creative wonders of the Critical Turn #1, we have the magical appearance of Daniel Ingram in two conversations covering a great deal of ground. Our first conversation covers a wide range of topics from practice to waking up, from generation-X to cynicism. The second covers a series of posts from the Speculative non-Buddhism site called Trash Theory. We discuss the SNB briefly and then tackle some weird and wonderful postulates those boys have been playing with of late. That second episode will be released within the next 24 hours. Both episodes feature the same introduction and will be released in the same week. This is because folks will likely get more out of one episode than the other; though I shall post them in the order we recorded them. The second episode is also incomplete and Daniel and I will be recording its follow up this coming Thursday (20th June, 2019), which means you have the opportunity to chip in with your own comments, complaints or curiosities, though you’ll obviously have to be quick. It’s possible that we will also tackle some of Ken Wilber’s work in that episode and Daniel’s take on it, so if you have any insights into why Wilber was full of it, or specific points that underline problems with Ken’s work more generally, let me have them, as I have only a superficial reading of his work and never felt motivated to read beyond a general introduction to his ideas, which seem pretty simplistic, though potentially useful. Music is supplied by Kali Phoenix & Hundred Strong.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

Critical turn #1 On a deep dark night in a deep dark wood, something strange happened over at the Imperfect Buddha podcast. Was it a moment of folly? Was it a moment of genuine madness? It remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure is that a critical turn took place and in good company too. For in that deep dark wood there was a gathering and a fire and those who turned up were Samuel Beckett, Peter Sloterdjik, Francois Laruelle, and Evelyn Underhill. Animal presences could also be heard amongst the trees and in the undergrowth, whilst the fire crackled away providing the warmth that would stimulate a rather atypical exploration of recent themes to appear on the podcast. This is the first of perhaps many critical turns, or, if it is deemed a forest fire like disaster by listeners and critics, it may be consumed as a one-off event, just like a Tibetan sand painting. As I have been saying for several episodes now, the creative and the critical are great bedfellows and this is my expression of a meeting between the two. There are strange sound effects, music, disembodied voices and narration. For the more practically minded, what I do is lay out a number of principles for guiding a sort of critical engagement with Buddhism, Buddhist materials, and practice materials more broadly beyond spirituality. I also reflect on the topic of mysticism which came up in my conversation with Ken and Hokai. This is in fact the intention for future critical turns, to pick up on and addressed issues left over from conversations with guests, identify unanswered questions, and make links to broader issues covered in the life time of the podcast. This may also produce interesting material to explore with future guests. It is an experiment, so it may or may not work. Feedback will hopefully be worthwhile and indicate the direction that further critical turns take. Prepare yourselves, expect the unexpected, and try not to take it all too seriously. Comments, complaints, suggestions, corrections, pledges of large sums of money, can all be made at the usual places. Enjoy the show! 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

This is the second instalment of my wide-ranging conversation with Ken McLeod and Hokai Sobol. It features an extended introduction that is, in part, a response to feedback from episode 50, and I invite our more critically leaning listeners to gift feedback on what is an ongoing experiment in crafting conversations that will increasingly respond to the challenges raised and explored throughout the life of this podcast. The conversation was largely unplanned and improvised & this means it features free-flowing exploration, rather than a programmed engagement with a few straightforward ideas. We journey into the terrain of mysticism and practice and most of the topics covered are explored within the context of these two. Here's just some of what we cover; - Mysticism - Sloterdjik & Jonathon Haidt (Žižek too!) - Ethics V Morality - Social duty & mystical practice - Universal human rights & authority - Transactional & utilitarian approaches to practice - Verbing outcomes: nirvana & freedom as practices - Purity & purification - Critical thinking & engaging with the taboos of our time - Risqué practices & the Protestant strain in western Buddhism - Teacher/Student relationships & ongoing challenges. End music is by Bristol based artist Aisha Chaouche and is called "So what?"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