Pragmatic Buddhism

What if you could explore Buddhism without having to believe that Buddhism is the one true path? In this episode, Glenn leads a discussion with the Columbus sangha that explores one of the most important and most easily overlooked aspects of a pragmatic approach to Buddhism: don't cling to Buddhism itself. Glenn and the sangha talk about what happens when Buddhists become attached to their own philosophy, how engaged Buddhism challenges the idea that accepting reality means simply accepting the world as it is, and why the practical question isn't always “Is this teaching true?” but rather, “Does this reduce suffering or increase it?” Along the way, Glenn and the sangha consider Christianity, Islam, religious certainty, proselytizing, and our own tendency to believe that our way is better than everyone else's. For anyone curious about Buddhism but uncomfortable with dogma, religious exclusivity, or the idea that you have to accept a particular set of beliefs, this conversation offers another possibility: Buddhism as a way of living that can be tested in your own life—not a claim that you've found the only way. Because perhaps the point isn't to find the right philosophy. Perhaps it's to find a way that helps us live with greater awareness, compassion, and less suffering.

What do you do with a teaching that asks you to trust something you can't prove? James from the St. Louis sangha reads Stephen Batchelor's "Resolve" chapter and his answer is to keep the trust pointed at yourself and at the decision you already made, rather than at a claim about the universe. He works through Batchelor's three words for resolve — aspiration, appreciation, conviction — through the idea that our conditioning behaves like an addiction, and through Buddha nature, which he handles carefully because this is an agnostic practice and he'll only speak to what he knows. He's honest that he'd still call it spiritual. The St. Louis sangha discusses these ideas and introduces equanimity, self-compassion, tai chi, and more from their experiences.

AI can give us almost endless information about Buddhism, but can information actually transform us? In this thought-provoking Dharma talk, Tim Curtis explores what gets lost when we confuse knowing about the Dharma with experiencing it. Using AI, meditation, and the famous Good Will Hunting distinction between knowledge and lived experience, Tim asks if we can truly understand the Dharma without actually practicing it. This compelling conversation is for anyone interested in Buddhism as something to live, not simply something to learn.

Mary had heart surgery in her twenties and came out with a blind spot her brain filled in. She didn't know she couldn't see this spot until someone asked why she wasn't taking pills that were sitting right in front of her. She still uses the question: "Is my brain a liar?" on herself when she assumes someone's mad at her. This week's St. Louis sangha talk starts there and moves into Thich Nhat Hanh's seven factors of awakening, a five-year-old watch someone finally took out of a box, and why pragmatic Buddhism means dealing with a bully at work instead of a hiding away in a cave in the mountains.

What do you do when someone states, flatly, that God exists, or that God does not? Glenn's answer in The Middle Way of Pragmatism is to slow down. Notice when you're reacting to a claim only because it clashes with your own view. Then ask what you can actually prove. Glenn traces this through William James, the long history of atomic theory, and an old warning against accepting a claim just because someone asserts it. He's careful about the limits of the idea, too. Staying open on the big questions doesn't mean tolerating bigotry. The Columbus sangha discusses these ideas and introduces physics, the burden of proof, and more from their experiences.

Danielle of the St. Louis sangha completes a walk through the Noble Eightfold Path with the mental discipline basket: appropriate effort, mindfulness, and concentration. A short teaching opens into a candid group discussion about attention, autopilot, overwork, and what "enough effort" feels like.

Why do we call it Pragmatic Buddhism? Glenn of the Columbus sangha starts by discussing the Western pragmatists (Peirce, James, Dewey, and Rorty). But then he runs and experiment by asking AI to draft the rest of the dharma talk. The AI dharma talk works through some of the most pragmatic moments in the Buddhist canon (the poisoned arrow, the raft, skillful means, the two truths, and "come and see"). When discussion opens for the sangha, most focus on the AI-written talk. Several felt like they learned a lot. But Joe says he found himself taking notes as if it were a lecture and wasn't sure what to do with it by the end. Listen to the talk and ask yourself what (if?) a Dharma talk loses when there is no lived life behind the words.

We all want to do the right thing but what is the "right thing"? Most people come to Buddhism hoping for a rulebook. Do these three things, avoid those five, and you'll be fine. This episode is about the ethical conduct of the Eightfold Path. It's where you'd expect to find that rullebook. But that's not how Buddhism works. Danielle and the St Louis sangha discuss skillful speech, skillful action, and skillful livelihood. What counts as skillful speech when so much of how we connect runs on so-called idle chatter? How do you find the right action when the honest answer is that it depends on the moment, and on whether you even have the capacity today? And why does "skillful livelihood" sting so much in a culture that treats overwork as proof of worth? You won't leave with a checklist. That's the point, and it's more freeing than it sounds.

What is the difference between reacting and responding, and can you train the gap between the two? In this episode, Glenn from the Columbus sangha takes Buddhist practice off the cushion and onto the ice. He treats curling as a kind of beginner practice (all those long pauses before you release the rock) and football as something more advanced, where players drill their responses so often they turn into muscle memory. Then he catches himself in a false split between a "reactive" sport and a "responsive" one and lands somewhere more useful: the only reactivity you can honestly judge is your own. The sangha picks it up from there, with the biathlete whose heart rate drops to take the shot, curling's everyperson appeal, and one father's story about snapping at a pizza app and watching his son go quiet.

What does it take to see your own life clearly, and then actually act on what you see? In this episode, Danielle teaches the wisdom basket of the Eightfold Path: skillful view (often called Right View) and skillful intention (Right Intention). She walks through the Four Ennobling Realities, the Pragmatic Buddhist reframe of the Four Noble Truths, and how craving, aversion, and delusion shape what we take to be real. Then the sangha takes over. Members talk through what skillful intention looks like when it gets hard, including the courage it takes to end a friendship and still stay gentle with the person you're walking away from.

In this dharma talk from the Order of Pragmatic Buddhists, Curtis explores the relationship between compassion and wisdom, two qualities the Buddha identified as essential to awakening. Curtis argues that compassion without wisdom becomes overwhelming, and wisdom without compassion becomes hollow. The talk closes with reflections from sangha members Josh and Corey on what it means to practice compassion in real life.

What if Buddhism's core teaching wasn't a set of beliefs to accept, but a diagnosis and a prescription? In this dharma discussion, Danielle introduces the Four Ennobling Realities and the Eightfold Path and explains why Pragmatic Buddhism reframes "noble truths" as ennobling realities : practices you live, not doctrines you adopt. The conversation with the St Louis sangha moves from theory into real life: gossip at work, meditation that doesn't feel like it's working, what "skillful speech" actually means on a random workday.

We constantly take a mood, a moment, or a memory and turn it into who we are . "I'm an anxious person." "This is just how my life goes." "That's who they are." In this talk and discussion from the Columbus sangha, Joe explores the Buddhist concept of reification (the very human habit of freezing what is fluid) and what the tradition has to say about why it leads to suffering, and how practice can help us loosen our grip. Drawing on Kalupahana's reading of early Buddhist philosophy, this conversation weaves together the five aggregates, non-self, and sitting meditation into something practical and immediately recognizable. If you've ever noticed that the story you're telling about yourself might be more constructed than it seems, this one's for you.

Is prayer a Buddhist practice? More than we might think. In this dharma talk, Joe shares how his work as a chaplain transformed his understanding of prayer — from something he scoffed at to something he now considers a doorway into mindfulness, compassion, and the lived reality of interdependence. The Columbus sangha joins in a rich discussion about the Serenity Prayer, the Bodhisattva Vow, and what it means to meet people exactly where they are.

Aaron returns to lead the St. Louis Sangha through the second part of Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind , this time exploring "right attitude." The group reflects on the paradox of sitting without seeking, the practice of "leaving no trace," and what it means to build the cushion without chasing it. Discussion turns to early misconceptions about meditation, the layered noise of the mind, and the quiet micro-thoughts that surface only when we stop trying so hard.

What does Bach's organ music have to do with sitting zazen? For Glenn, everything. In this talk from the Columbus sangha, he shares a realization that struck him during morning physical therapy: truly listening to Baroque music is its own kind of meditation. The conversation winds through Suzuki Roshi's "don't serve them tea," the eightfold path as guidelines rather than commandments, forest bathing as prescribed medicine, the tyranny of sleep trackers, and why walking into a Buddhist temple on the other side of the world can make you think, "wait, is this even Buddhism?" A warm, wide-ranging discussion about finding presence when the cushion isn't working, and learning to hear the whole field instead of just one line.

What if the hardest thing in the world is simply sitting still? In this episode, Aaron from the St. Louis sangha leads our community through the opening of Suzuki's classic Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind , and the conversation ranges from the pressure to always be productive to what it means to just observe without acting to why being terrible at something might actually be your greatest advantage.

We live in a world built for distraction — scrolling, streaming, multitasking, always doing something else. But what if awakening isn’t somewhere far away, but right here in this moment? In this talk, Glenn explores Buddha nature and the practice of presence with the Columbus sangha, asking a simple but powerful question: What are you doing with your time?

The Three Marks of Existence can sound stark: everything is impermanent, clinging leads to dissatisfaction, and there is no fixed self. But these teachings aren’t pessimistic; they’re liberating. In this episode, monks from the Order of Pragmatic Buddhism explore how recognizing change reduces fear, how understanding dissatisfaction shifts craving, and how seeing the fluid nature of identity softens defensiveness. Far from nihilism, the Three Marks offer a clear-eyed way of relating to life as it is.

The Buddhist teaching of “no self” can sound confusing or even alarming. Does it mean we don’t exist? That our personality is an illusion? In this talk, Douglas and the St Louis sangha unpack what “no self” actually points to and why it’s considered one of the most liberating insights in Buddhist practice. Rather than denying our experience, this discussion invites us to look closely at how identity forms, solidifies, and creates suffering. By understanding the self as a dynamic process rather than a fixed entity, we open the door to greater flexibility, compassion, and freedom.