Buddhism Podcasts

Ajahn Sumedho Podcast by Amaravati gathers talks by the monastery's founding abbot. In Giving Thanks he moves from the American Thanksgiving to gratitude and contentment as foundations of the holy life. Then he speaks plainly about age: "This is the result of being 91 years old." The talk's real gift is his warning against clinging to seniority, set beside memories of an extraordinarily grumpy father.

Ajahn Amaro Podcast by Amaravati works chapter by chapter through a book, parsing Pali terms and taking questions, but the stories are what stay with you. In Chapter 8 – Unsupported and Unsupportive Consciousness (part 3) he recalls being told "desire is a liar" on arriving at a monastery. He then sat hungry, watched a craving for pineapple and concluded "the Buddha's stupid." The joke carries the teaching.

Ajahn Brahmali Podcast is the most explanatory of the three. In Memory and Mindfulness | 2025 he argues that mindfulness is awareness joined to memory of the teachings. He also pauses to praise the open-air toilet behind his hut for having "the best view in the world."

Buddhist Books Podcast reads the Tipitaka, monastic rules included, and its host interrupts freely. In Buddhist Books: TIPIṬAKA 192 • Mahāvagga IX - Part 5 the host concedes that most people skip these rules, reads them anyway, and greets a clause about levitating monks with "Levitate somewhere else." The asides keep a dry text breathing.

Daily Wisdom - Walking The Path with The Buddha, shared by David Roylance, runs as a class: chanting, meditation, then teaching from a book chapter. Ep. 1038 - (Group Learning Program) - Chapter 24 - Misunderstandings of Gotama Buddha's Teachings lasts 112 minutes and draws a hard line. The chanting, the teacher says, "isn't a rite, ritual, ceremony, worship, or prayer," and much later practice has strayed from what the Buddha taught. That is one side of a live debate, and listeners from devotional traditions may hear it differently.

Gosho Reading (Nichiren Buddhism) brings Nichiren Buddhism to the same desk. 106 The Three Kinds of Treasure thanks its recipient for seaweed and coins and grieves over the illness of the recipient's lord.

AZC Weekly talks archives teaching from the Auckland Zen Centre, most of it by Roshi Amala Wrightson. 2025-01-04 Teachings of Tangen Roshi 1 tells a teacher's life as an ancestral story. As a young man he knocked his own jaw out of place in self-reproach. Later he volunteered as a kamikaze pilot, and afterwards a friend sent him to see a Buddhist nun. The speaker takes encouragement from it that people can come back from very low places. The account touches on self-harm and war.

Appamada, a Zen centre in Austin, Texas, lets you overhear its sangha, or practice community. In 2026-04-05 | Dharma Talk | Cooking & the Sanga Discussion | C. Seren8y, a talk on Dogen's instructions for the cook opens onto the members themselves. One tried brushing their teeth slowly. Another admits how hard equanimity is toward a neighbour with a Confederate flag in the garage.

Ordinary Mind Zen School, with talks by Geoff Dawson in Sydney, explains koan work from inside. In Sesshin Day 3: Joshu’s Dog. Working with the first Koan Mu he describes coming before a teacher during sesshin, the intensive retreat, and saying "I don't know" day after day: "It doesn't matter how intelligent you are."

Awake in the World Podcast preserves the late Michael Stone's live talks. In Best of Awake in the World: Hope Without Optimism he weighs Slavoj Žižek's charge that meditation calms people so that nothing changes. "I think he's right and I also don't agree," he says, and his answer is a third step after bearing witness: loving action.

Bob Thurman Podcast: Buddhas Have More Fun! is gloriously digressive. A Tibet House US Menla Conversation with Henry Shukman – Ep. 336 runs 78 minutes with the Zen master and author of Original Love. It wanders to the Avatamsaka Sutra, includes an invitation to lead a meditation, and at one point loses its thread entirely. Note that A Tibet House US Menla Conversation with Andy Chaleff – Ep. 345 includes a guest's account of a man ending his life.

The Workshop is in the Mind, teaching by Venerable Robina Courtin, argues back. In Compassionate Activism (teaching) a listener objects that acceptance sounds like shrugging at the killing of children. The reply uses a broken cup to separate facing a fact from condoning it: "Acceptance is not meaning passive."

Bringing Mind Into View presents the Kagyu lineage through discussions ranging from Gampopa to 2026 search-trend data. In Emptiness. Unfusing From The Human Suit they begin to search the five aggregates for a self. The analogies are vivid. The claims that science confirms these truths are the show's own, and listeners who want a teacher in a lineage speaking directly may prefer the monastic feeds.

The Modern Buddhism Podcast, produced by the New Kadampa Tradition, is an interview show. In Pain Is Not From Loss a hospice nurse describes how teaching on attachment reached a grief that therapy and support groups had helped but not resolved.

On Mangala Shri Bhuti - The Link, The Good Fortune of Encountering the Dharma and the Confidence to Walk the Path (Link #813) belongs to Sarah Gomez, speaking from Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. She does not speak English, so her daughter reads her text. It traces a path from a Pema Chodron book 25 years ago to buying crabs at open-air markets and returning them to their habitat.

The Buddhist Centre, from the Triratna community, gives Portraits of Samadhi to photographs of people meditating. One sitter, used to being seen as warm and smiley, meets a blank face, and another calls being watched "quite transgressive."

Free Buddhist Audio carries a needed caution in Dying Into Freedom: Spiritual Death In the Triratna System of Practice. After trauma, the speaker suggests, reaching for no-self can become dissociation and "even be a bit dangerous."

Some feeds that surface beside Buddhism belong elsewhere. Satsang with Swaha - Audio mixes Zen stories with talk of Osho, Kabir and Rumi and fits the Spirituality page. So does MarcoToday NL, a Dutch series on esotericism. Weave & Cleave, a Christian, trauma-informed interview show, belongs with the Christian Living page. The Religion & Spirituality guide maps the rest.