500 episodes listed below
Patient Dhamma reflection, close to silence.
Ajahn Sumedho Podcast by Amaravati gathers measured Dhamma talks and Q&A reflections rooted in Buddhist practice. Its recent episodes move from rain, grief, silence, PTSD, and mortality toward the repeated question of what can be witnessed without grasping.
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Ajahn Sumedho Podcast by Amaravati is a large archive of Buddhist talks and Q&A reflections centered on Dhamma as immediate experience. The style is austere. Recent episodes ask how suffering forms around resistance: not wanting rain, not wanting a painful thought, not wanting grief, not wanting the body to age and die. From there, the talks keep returning to awareness. The show is less interested in giving a system to master than in loosening the impulse to turn practice into another project of self-control. A question about PTSD becomes a reflection on trauma, memory, and the wish to clear the past before liberation can be possible. A meditation on silence turns listening into a way of opening, not striving. A discussion of liberation contrasts the gradual path with the immediate trust in awareness here and now. The language is often traditional. Pali terms, chanting, Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, sankharas, and the suttas appear beside ordinary images of weather, shelter, family holidays, old age, and personal disappointment. That mixture gives the show its texture. It is devotional without being sentimental, philosophical without becoming academic, and practical without sounding brisk. The recurring movement is from identity toward witnessing. The talks question the force of convention: nationality, gender, religious labels, sacred language, even the imagined Buddha on the road. Doubt is not treated only as a problem. It can become a pause in thinking, a place where awareness is noticed. The show also has a grave honesty about mortality. Death, grief, fear, and loss are not softened into reassurance, but brought into the same field of observation as gratitude and contentment. Its value lies in repetition and depth rather than novelty. For the right listener, the slowness is the point.
Made for: For listeners interested in Buddhist philosophy, meditation, and contemplative inquiry. It especially suits those comfortable with slow talks, repeated reflection, and spiritual language around suffering, awareness, and letting go.
What sets it apart: The show stands apart through its unhurried insistence on direct awareness rather than quick instruction or motivational clarity. Ordinary experiences such as rain, grief, gratitude, doubt, and aging become gateways into sustained Dhamma investigation.
This podcast includes the last 888 talks by our founding abbot Ajahn Sumedho, the first Western disciple of Ajahn Chah.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Ajahn Sumedho makes Buddhist teachings on awareness and letting go practical by testing doctrine against ordinary thoughts, emotions, aging, and mortality.
Ajahn Sumedho Podcast by Amaravati turns Dhamma talks and occasional question-and-answer sessions into patient instruction in awareness. Ajahn Sumedho moves between Buddhist terminology and ordinary experience, treating gratitude, grief, desire, old age, and fear of death as…
Ajahn Sumedho meets your inner perfectionist with a deceptively small question: can you witness it?
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A calm meditation on death, identity, and the discipline of looking directly.
This talk treats death as a question of identity, not only an ending. It moves through fear of aging, the fast passing of youth, and familiar ideas about death, rebirth, and reincarnation, while asking what remains if a person is not the body or even the name they carry.
A quiet warning against turning Buddha, self, or practice into fixed ideas.
This talk begins with a Zen saying about seeing the Buddha on the road, then moves into the argument that true nature is Buddha and should not be pinned to any image.
A patient Buddhist reflection on gratitude, contentment, grief, and the freedom found in witnessing change.
Giving Thanks turns a familiar holiday into a meditation on what gratitude can ask of a person. The episode begins with Thanksgiving as a scene of welcome and generosity, then lets the darker history around it complicate that comfort.
A patient Buddhist reflection on silence, impermanence, and letting go in unsettled ordinary life.
This Dhamma talk follows a monk as he tries to speak about the Sound of Silence without making silence into one more idea to hold. He begins with gratitude around the celebration of his 90th year, then moves through identity, Buddhist labels, Nibbana, and the unsettled state of…
A vocabulary distinction opens into a patient inquiry about happiness and changing conditions.
The episode starts with a vocabulary distinction, then lets it widen into a discussion of Buddhist practice. Bawana is presented as the development of the Eightfold Path, while meditation is treated as the broader language of mental training, including Samatha, concentration…
Generous Buddhist conversations without the rush.
This episode explores the Buddhist concept of vipaka kamma (past karma) and how understanding it can help with acceptance and letting go in interpersonal situations.
Ajahn Sumedho discusses why he prefers the Pali term 'Bhavana' over 'meditation' to describe the practice of the Eightfold Path.
Ajahn Sumedho reflects on his 90th birthday and upcoming trip to Portugal before delivering his last Dhamma talk until July.
This episode explores the concept of conscious awareness as silence, emphasizing the Dhamma's presence in the here and now and the need for personal recognition beyond ignorance.
This episode features Buddhist chanting and teachings on how not getting what one wants leads to suffering, exploring spiritual concepts of desire and attachment.
This episode explores Buddhist teachings on Dhamma as a path of personal reflection rather than preaching, emphasizing understanding reality directly.
This episode explores the relationship between trauma (including PTSD and complex PTSD) and Buddhist Dharma teachings, questioning whether trauma must be addressed before pursuing spiritual liberation from suffering.
Ajahn Sumedho defines vibhava tanha as the desire to get rid of what we don't like, using examples such as rain, wilting white roses and grumpy mornings.
This episode explores the experience of listening to silence in a temple as a form of meditation that avoids personal duty and embraces freedom.
Ajahn Sumedho reflects on impermanence, grief, identity, and pure consciousness through Buddhist terms including sankhara, avicca, and sakya ditti.
This episode explores the tension between viewing spiritual liberation as a gradual linear process versus an immediate experience accessible in the present moment, based on Buddhist teachings.
The talk opens with a welcome to the Dhamma.
The speaker opens with a Zen saying about seeing the Buddha on the road.
The episode opens with repeated words of homage.
This episode reflects on the significance of the Buddha's first sermon, delivered after his enlightenment to five colleagues, which introduced the Four Noble Truths and serves as a foundational teaching in the Theravada tradition celebrated during Asala Puja.