Top 10 Episodes of 2021

In 2021, our podcast explored everything from birth to death to Bitcoin to vaccines. We talked to scholars, biologists, monks, and relationship experts. We explored how spirituality and meditation intersect with Netflix, love, artificial intelligence, and equality.

Thank you for going on the journey with us.

We had over 100,000 downloads in 2021 and are grateful for every one of you in our audience. Knowing you are out there and hearing your kind comments keep us motivated to continue this meaningful work. If you would like to support our mission to freely share these teachings, please share the podcast with friends, write us a review wherever you listen to podcasts, or you can donate.

Below, we count down the Top 10 Episodes of 2021. May they be of benefit.

10. Birth, Death and Infinity (Episode 56)

I want to tell you a story about birth and death and infinity. We’re all born and we’re all going to die, but I don’t know how many of you have ever felt a connection to infinity. I want to tell you about the time in my life when I felt this connection to infinity every day. And I also want to tell you about how I lost it, and whether it’s possible to get it back again.

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9. What Happens When You Die? (Episode 58)

What happens when you die? No one knows for sure. But the Tibetan Buddhist system describes a precise series of steps that our consciousness may experience as we die, which we can explore in a meditation to probe the boundary of life and death with curiosity and wonder.

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8. Why Mindfulness (Episode 60)

Could the true cause of happiness be simply thinking about whatever we are doing at the moment, what meditators call mindfulness?

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7. Scott Tusa on Mindfulness and Meditation in Everyday Life (Episode 61)

In the interview, Scott talks with us about balancing a committed life of a Buddhist practitioner with the everyday life of work, friends, and family. He also shares some of the common challenges people face in meditation, and constructive, compassionate ways that we can work with these challenges.

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6. Bitcoin and Buddhism (Episode 70)

What can Buddhism teach us about how Bitcoin works & why it’s so valuable? What can Bitcoin teach us about emptiness, the interdependent nature of reality?

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5. The Relaxed Mind with Dza Kilung Rinpoche (Episode 74)

Tibetan Buddhist teacher Dza Kilung Rinpoche shares seven meditation practices for a relaxed mind, heart, and body.

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4. A Biologist and a Buddhist Monk on the Nature of Reality: A Conversation with Geshe Namdak and Rupert Sheldrake (Episode 81)

A biologist and a Buddhist monk have a conversation on how science can make sense of rebirth, emptiness, and karma, the origins of consciousness and creativity, and how modern science’s understanding of the nature of reality benefits from the wisdom of contemplative traditions.

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3. Pleasure and Buddhism: Food, Sex and Netflix on the Path to Enlightenment (Episode 84)

Pleasure is often viewed as a hindrance to the spiritual path, a hotbed of craving and attachment, but what if we told you that pleasure can actually be a positive part of the spiritual path, a portal to love and happiness?

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2. Four Noble Truths of Love with Susan Piver (Episode 88)

NYT bestselling author and Buddhist meditation teacher Susan Piver shares her Four Noble Truths of Love, a framework anybody can use for deeper, more fulfilling, and more connected intimate relationships.

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1: Women, Buddhism and Equality with Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo (Episode 92)

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo is one of the world’s most revered Buddhist teachers and one of the very first Westerners to become ordained into the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. She is best known for having lived in a remote cave in the Himalayas for 12 years. She spoke with us about the role of women in Buddhism from a historical and contemporary lens, the nature of mind, and simple, powerful ways to meditate in the modern world.

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