Untangle · Untangle

Forget Traditional Doctrines! A Skeptical Buddhist Shares his Practical Philosophy. With Stephen Batchelor

January 29, 2026·29 min·2 clips

Stephen Batchelor, a former monk, explains why he calls himself a skeptical Buddhist who questions everything.

After the intro, the host turns toward application. She talks about mindfulness as something listeners may want to carry into the world, especially when they are dealing with other people and trying to act with more care. Batchelor draws a careful line. Mindfulness, for him, is not just a daily pocket of calm where someone relaxes, chills out, and feels better for a while. That version is too small. He describes meditation as starting with settling, stilling, and becoming less reactive, but he keeps coming back to what happens after the sitting ends. Reactions still come up. The aim is not to become blank or emotionless. It is to stop reacting automatically to the reaction itself. Fear can be seen clearly. Anger can arrive, hang around, and fade without being allowed to run the whole show. The host reflects that back as not getting hooked, and the phrase fits. The social world is where the practice gets tested. Work, friends, and family show whether non-reactivity has become more than a pleasant inner state. Batchelor's point is humane. People do not always choose difficult moments in any clean, obvious way. They find themselves angry, greedy, driven, or impulsive before they have fully caught up with what happened. Old habits move fast. Programmed instincts and psychological patterns can push words or behavior forward, and regret can arrive almost immediately afterward. The conversation treats mindfulness as a way to create a little space before the old pattern finishes itself, not as a promise that hard feelings go away. Patricia closes with gratitude and points listeners toward Stephen Batchelor's website and books, keeping the ending warm, appreciative, and practical.

As heard by us

Mindfulness gets tested in ordinary life here, not just in meditation, and the episode makes that case well.

Stephen Batchelor treats mindfulness as something that has to hold up in ordinary life, not just in a quiet sitting practice. The clearest idea here is his split between being non-reactive and being reactionless: the aim is not to get rid of reactions, but to see them plainly…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If mindfulness feels like an inward-only practice, this conversation asks what it looks like when it shows up at work, with friends, and with family.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Untangle