Bob Thurman Podcast

In this episode Professor Thurman expounds the profound teaching, contained in the fifth chapter of the famous Vimalakirti Sutra, which he translated and has been teaching for nearly forty years. […]

Death is just like going to sleep.. And then we are going to wake up. The way, in which we wake up, has to do with how we have lived […]

In this episode Professor Thurman explains, why we may call Buddhism Realism. He presents Buddha’s teachings on the Four Noble Truths (or Four Noble Realities) and the Eightfold Path (or […]

What do we experience when we look inside? Where do we place our confidence? Do we believe that we have mind? In this episode Professor Thurman discusses the power of […]

Tantric Buddhism is known as the fast path, meaning that it is possible to become enlightened in one or a few lives, instead of millions. In this podcast, Professor Thurman […]

In this episode, Professor Thurman discusses visualization practice and meditation. He explains how the context which you assume will determine how much progress you can make. When you create an […]

This episode is a continuation of last week’s episode on The Heart Sutra. In this episode, Professor Thurman discusses the questions: How does free will work? What does it mean […]

The Heart Sutra is one of the most profound and widely studied texts in the Buddhist canon. In this episode, Professor Thurman reads the Heart Sutra, and explains the meaning […]

In this episode, Professor Thurman explains how to use analysis to realize non-duality. Deconstructing our habitual understanding of body, mind- everything you think of as solid and real dissolves under […]

In this episode, Professor Thurman reads the first chapter of Vimalakirti, which he translated and has been teaching for nearly forty years. Thurman illuminates the meaning of the text, the […]

In this podcast Robert A.F. Thurman discussed the Buddhist perspective on the health and happiness of all beings. One of the unique aspects of Tibetan culture is that for hundreds […]

In this episode, Professor Thurman points out the unspoken rule in our culture that it isn’t OK to be happy for no apparent reason. He explains that in fact, reality […]

All of us have knots in our energetic system from our conditioning and emotional trauma that need to be uncoiled through spiritual practice. However, if we try to pierce them […]

Yuthok Nyingthig is the most important practice for Tibetan medicine healing practitioners. The practice of Yuthok Nyingthig helps reveal the rainbow body that is each person’s natural state. Professor Thurman […]

In this episode, Professor Thurman discusses Buddhist ethics, which he translates as the ten-fold path of skillful and unskillful action. Instead of right and wrong, Professor Thurman urges us to […]

One of the Dalai Lama’s slogans is: “If you want to be happy, be compassionate.” In this lecture, Professor Thurman discusses how to do this by opening our hearts to […]

The Buddha’s Wheel of Dependent Origination describes the cycle of existence—the endless wheel of samsara and suffering. The first link on this wheel is ignorance, or mis-knowing. Specifically, the idea […]

In this episode, Professor Robert A.F. Thurman responds to the question: “Does Buddhism believe in a soul?” Buddhism teaches that we have no inherent self, so how can there be […]

In this lecture, Professor Thurman explains the concept of non-duality, and that emptiness doesn’t mean we don’t have a mind. Emptiness means we have an uncreated mind—it has always been […]

Professor Thurman discusses the potential dangers of cultivating an empty mind without also developing proper understanding of what emptiness is. Just meditating with our default understanding of reality can temporarily […]