Buddhism Beyond Belief with Susan Piver

Conversation with Samuel Bercholz, founder of Shambhala Publications and my meditation teacher, Part One

Send us Fan Mail I talk with my longest time spiritual friend, Samuel Bercholz, founder of Shambhala Publications and author of the new book, Rude Awakenings. It was wri

Three Ways to Work With Heartbreak: Part Three

Send us Fan Mail Heartbreak can make our usual strategies for managing pain useless. It can also show us what is true about being human: everything changes, everything e

Three Ways to Work With Heartbreak: Part Two

Send us Fan Mail When heartbreak is overwhelming, the instinct is often to make it stop. But what if the practice is not to fix what we're feeling, but to learn how

Three Ways to Work With Heartbreak: Part One

Send us Fan Mail Heartbreak is something we have the tendency to want to get rid of as quickly as possible. But some heartbreaks cannot be “fixed” or hurried. In this ep

Learning is Remembering: The Outer, Inner, and Secret Teachers

Send us Fan Mail How do we recognize a true teacher? In this episode I talk about the outer teacher, the inner teacher, and the secret teacher. Along the way I share a s

Meditation: An Act of Rebellion

Send us Fan Mail It's no secret that many forces are competing for your attention, especially online. Some are noble and righteous. Some are not. Trying to track it

How Do You Help Someone Who is Dying?

Send us Fan Mail This is a shorter episode, recorded while my family and I accompany my mother through hospice care. I reflect on an instruction I received when I first

What is Emptiness?

Send us Fan Mail What does "emptiness" actually mean in Buddhism? It is one of the most misunderstood teachings, often taken to mean nothingness or the absence of meanin

Four Reminders that Deepen Spiritual Practice

Send us Fan Mail This week I share one of the central teachings in Tibetan Buddhist practice: the Four Reminders that turn the mind toward the dharma. I had a recent con

How to Live as a Mystic

Send us Fan Mail It’s episode 60! A perfect place to reach a summation of my new book, Inexplicable Magic: Meditation for Mystics which posits that meditation is not abo

We Dream on Behalf of Others: Presence, Agency, and Staying Sane

Send us Fan Mail This episode picks up on the sixth principle of spiritual practice from my new book, Inexplicable Magic: Meditation for Mystics: We Dream on Behalf of O

The Inexplicable Magic of Cleaning Up After Yourself

Send us Fan Mail “The first rule of magic is containment,” said the great Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way and many other books. This points to the idea that th

The Importance of Spiritual Boundaries

Send us Fan Mail The spiritual path asks you to open up, and the more you do so, the more you feel everything: your tenderness, things you’ve been avoiding, your deepest

The Wisdom of a Broken Heart

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I explore one of the most persistent misunderstandings about meditation: that it is supposed to make you feel better. From my experienc

The Way is Personal

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I reflect on a recent meditation and writing retreat where participants explored grief, heartbreak, violence, loss, and the experiences

Ritual Sustains Spiritual Practice

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I explore why spiritual practice becomes sustainable through ritual, not force. I share the story of a month-long meditation retreat wh

Starting Over: Meditation for Mystics

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I reflect on a recent conversation in the Open Heart Project sangha about scientific research on meditation. Yes, meditation can improv

Do Buddhists Pray?

Send us Fan Mail Here is a new episode after an unexpected pause. I’m moving to a new house and that has stirred disorientation, emotional complexity, and a break from f

Recap: The Noble Eightfold Path

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I bring all eight steps of the Noble Eightfold Path together. This teaching is a way of living, not a project of self-improvement. This

The Noble Eightfold Path: Step Eight: Right Samadhi

Send us Fan Mail This week we arrive at the final step of the Noble Eightfold Path: Right Samadhi, often translated as concentration or absorption. If the earlier steps