Ted Meissner and I discussed my site Buddhism for Vampires a few days ago by Skype. He has posted a podcast recording on his site The Secular Buddhist.
Our conversation was a lot of fun and I think you’ll enjoy it. He’s a skilled interviewer, and probably more knowledgeable about the subject than I am! The audio format is completely new to me, so I might sound clueless, but he can make up for that.
Ted is doing important work in articulating a secular vision of Buddhism for the future, and drawing together other Buddhist thinkers who have naturalistic, secular view. I listened to more than a dozen of the podcasts on his site to prepare for mine, and found many of them extremely interesting. There’s a complete list here; check it out.
I originally intended to do the whole Crumbling Buddhist Consensus series in audio format, as conversations. My plans for the series were interrupted by the Maha Buddhist Teachers Conference, which demanded immediate commentary. And so it has developed in a format, and in an order, quite different from my plans.
I had had the idea that it would be less work to produce the series in audio format, because it would force me to spend less of the time-consuming thinking-through and language-polishing work I do for web pages. What I’ve learned recently is that preparing a podcast talk is even more work than writing!
Nevertheless, I hope to do more podcasts soon, so feedback would be helpful. I haven’t had a chance to listen this one yet (I am in what one of my teachers’ teachers called “the SST bardo,” SST standing for “short stupid trip”). Please let me know what you think. Do I sound like an idiot? Do you want to hear me talking, or would you rather read? Or both? Anything in particular you’d like to hear me talk about?