The Road Home with Ethan Nichtern – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Ethan is joined by old friend and teacher Adriana DiFazio for a wide ranging discussion of the limitations of a Western Buddhism that focuses on individualism, individual liberation, and "secular" practice. They discuss how to create a Dharma that is more focused on intersectionality and systems, along with a truly spiritual approach. Enjoy!

Adriana DiFazio is a Buddhist meditation teacher, scholar, chaplain, and parent whose work explores the intersections of Buddhism, critical theory, and social change. Her teaching emphasizes the dharma as a collective and liberatory practice, grounded in both personal and systemic transformation. She holds an M.Div. in Buddhism from Union Theological Seminary, where she focused on Engaged Buddhist ethics and Marxism. Adriana teaches meditation and Buddhist studies through her online newsletter and community, Radical Change(adrianadifazio.substack.com). Her website is www.adrianadifazio.com

Please support the podcast via Substack and subscribe for free or with small monthly contributions. Additional links and show notes are available there. Paid subscribers will receive occasional extras like guided meditations, extra podcast episodes and more! The Thursday Meditation Group happens each week at 8am ET on Thursdays, and a guided audio meditations are released monthly. Another bonus podcast for paid subscribers discussed a mindful take on intuition, and Ethan also offered instruction in the RAIN method for working with emotions with self-compassion. These are all available to paid subscribers. You can also subscribe to The Road Home podcast wherever you get your pods (Apple, Ethan's Website, etc). Subscribe now

You can also subscribe to The Road Home podcast wherever you get your pods (Apple, Ethan's Website, etc).

Find out about the 2026 Yearlong Buddhist Studies program at this link!

Check out about upcoming live events like a live talk with Ethan and Dan Harris December 10, a New Year's Eve Intention-Setting Workshop, and a live talk with Ethan and Roshi Joan Halifax January 6th! A new free video course on a classic Buddhist contemplation called The Five Remembrances is available at this link.

Check out all the cool offerings at our podcast sponsor Dharma Moon. Free video courses co-taught by Ethan and others, such as The Three Marks of Existence, are also available for download at Dharma Moon.

How did NYC become the epicenter of all the tensions and promise of American society and politics, and do the Buddhist teachings have anything to offer to understanding this political moment? Using the rise of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in his home city—a city of perpetual immigrants—Ethan explores themes of community engagement, sangha, social democracy and the power of standing up for what you believe in to talk about this chaotic (yet potent) moment on Earth.

Please support the podcast via Substack and subscribe for free or with small monthly contributions. Additional links and show notes are available there. Paid subscribers will receive occasional extras like guided meditations, extra podcast episodes and more! The Thursday Meditation Group happens each week at 8am ET on Thursdays, and a guided audio meditations are released monthly. Another bonus podcast for paid subscribers discussed a mindful take on intuition, and Ethan also offered instruction in the RAIN method for working with emotions with self-compassion. These are all available to paid subscribers. You can also subscribe to The Road Home podcast wherever you get your pods (Apple, Ethan's Website, etc). Subscribe now

Find out about the 2026 Yearlong Buddhist Studies program at this link! Check out about upcoming free live events like a panel on Mindfulness and Holiday Stress Nov 12, a live talk with Ethan and Dan Harris December 10, and a live talk with Ethan and Roshi Joan Halifax January 6th! A new free video course on a classic Buddhist contemplation called The Five Remembrances is available at this link.

Find out about the 2026 Yearlong Buddhist Studies program at this link!

Check out all the cool offerings at our podcast sponsor Dharma Moon, including a free webinar with David Nichtern on the new Advanced Teacher training on November 20. Free video courses co-taught by Ethan and others, such as The Three Marks of Existence, are also available for download at Dharma Moon.

Subscribe now

Ethan's most recent book, Confidence: Holding Your Seat Through Life's Eight Worldly Winds was just awarded a gold medal in the 2025 Nautilus Book Awards. You can visit Ethan's website to order a signed copy. Please allow two weeks from the time of your order for your copy to arrive.

(This episode of The Road Home is dedicated to the memory of Joanna Macy—founder of the Eco-Dharma and Deep Ecology Movements—who passed this weekend at the age of 96)

On this episode, a follow-up to episode 148, Ethan explores wealth and generosity from a tantric perspective. If you could take the view, for just one moment, that you, your perceptions, and your world were all perfect in being exactly what they were, how would that change your experience of yourself, your resources, and your participation in society? What is generosity ("dana" in the Buddhist languages) from a Tantric perspective? How does tantra change our ability to practice Dana, or "fluid exchange" with our experience? In the second part of a two episode discussion, Ethan looks at an understanding of wealth and generosity in the Vajrayana systems of Buddhist practice, incorporating themes of spacious awareness, teacher Rick Hanson's crucial four-step practice of "Taking in the Good," and the practices of Ratna Jewel, Golden Key and Enriching Presence from the Tantric and Shambhala traditions.

Please support the podcast via Substack and subscribe for free or with small monthly contributions. Paid subscribers will receive occasional extras like guided meditations, extra podcast episodes and more! The Thursday Meditation Group starts up again on July 10th, and a special guided meditation on Open Awarenesswas released this month. Another bonus podcast discussed a mindful take on the Revolutionary Astrology of Summer 2025 with Juliana McCarthy and Ethan Nichtern. You can also subscribe to The Road Home podcast wherever you get your pods (Apple, Spotify,Ethan's Website, etc).

Ethan's most recent book, Confidence: Holding Your Seat Through Life's Eight Worldly Winds was just awarded a gold medal in the 2025 Nautilus Book Awards. You can visit Ethan's website to order a signed copy. Please allow two weeks from the time of your order for your copy to arrive.

Don't forget to sign up for the August 23 "Windhorse Meditation" Online Retreat at this link and the upcoming 5 day retreat at the lovely Garrison Institute at this link !

Check out all the cool offerings at our podcast sponsor Dharma Moon, including theBody of Meditation Teacher Training program beginning July 10th, 2025. Free video courses co-taught by Ethan and others, such as The Three Marks of Existence, are also available for download.

Buddhist teacher, and Ethan's father, David Nichtern joins to bring the luminous into the temporal in a conversation merging Dharma, money, and mindfulness for the modern age.

David Nichtern is a senior Buddhist teacher who has been practicing and teaching meditation for over 40 years. He was one of the initial American students of renowned meditation master Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and studied closely with him soon after his arrival in the United States in 1970. Along with being an Emmy-winning, Grammy-nominated composer and musician, David is a business consultant integrating meditation into large companies. He is also Founder & CEO of Dharma Moon – a mindfulness-based education platform and global community; as well as host of the Be Here Now Network podcast Creativity, Spirituality and Making a Buck.

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Ethan Nichtern and Ruth Ozeki discuss her new novel, The Book of Form and Emptiness, the similarities between writing and meditation, and how to perceive the voices of the object world.

Ruth Ozeki is a novelist, filmmaker, and Zen Buddhist priest. She is the award-winning author of four novels, The Book of Form and Emptiness, My Year of Meats, All Over Creation, and A Tale for the Time Being, which was a finalist for the 2013 Booker Prize. Her nonfiction work includes a memoir, The Face: A Time Code, and the documentary film, Halving the Bones, which was screened at Sundance and on public television. Ruth is affiliated with the Brooklyn Zen Center and the Everyday Zen Foun­dation. She teaches creative writing at Smith College, where she is the Grace Jarcho Ross 1933 Professor of Humanities. Learn more about her at ruthozeki.com.

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Ethan Nichtern welcomes back Kate Johnson for a conversation around ways that the Buddha's teachings on friendship offer the potential for personal and communal transformation.

Kate Johnson is a meditation teacher, facilitator, and author of Radical Friendship: Seven Ways to Love Yourself and Find Your People in an Unjust World. She teaches classes and retreats integrating Buddhist meditation, somatics, social justice and creativity at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, the Kripalu Center, the Omega Institute, the Rubin Museum NYC, and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. Kate also works as a culture change consultant, partnering with organizations to help them achieve greater equity and sustainability in their inner and outer work. Learn more about her at katejohnson.com.

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Dr. Judson Brewer joins Ethan in an uplifting conversation on unwinding anxiety, illustrating how to break cycles of fear, uncertainty, and worry in order to heal our minds.

Neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and bestselling author, Judson Brewer MD PhD—affectionately, Dr. Jud—is the Director of Research and Innovation at the Mindfulness Center and associate professor in psychiatry at the School of Medicine at Brown University, as well as a research affiliate at MIT. Before that, he held research and teaching positions at Yale University and the University of Massachusetts' Center for Mindfulness. He recently published his New York Times Bestseller: Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind. For more info please visit DrJud.com

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With springtime in bloom, Ethan Nichtern offers a mindful optimism for thawing this bardo, nourishing the soil for rebirth. The question is: Rebirth of What?

In this special solo episode of The Road Home, Ethan Nichtern builds from a podcast released this past January, Into the Bardo: What Happens Now, which illuminated the painful collective gap experienced this past winter in regards to coronavirus, politics, uncertainty, and fear. As spring thaws away the ice, moods shift, politics hopefully become less volatile, and vaccines begin to roll out, Ethan shares a cautiously optimistic sentiment, exploring the metaphor of spring through the Buddhist lens of rebirth, investigating the very direct question: the rebirth of what?

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On this episode of The Road Home, Ann Gleig joins Ethan Nichtern for a conversation about her book, American Dharma, and the state of postmodern Buddhism in the Western world. 

Ann Gleig is an associate professor of religion and cultural studies at the University of Central Florida. She is the author of American Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Modernity 

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Writer, Chenxing Han, joins Ethan to discuss the intersection of race and privilege within Western Buddhism, focusing on giving voice to the Asian American Buddhist minority.

Chenxing Han is a Bay Area–based writer whose publications have appeared in Buddhadharma, Journal of Global Buddhism, Lion's Roar, Pacific World, Tricycle, and elsewhere. She holds a BA from Stanford University and an MA in Buddhist studies from the Graduate Theological Union. After studying chaplaincy at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, California she worked in spiritual care at a nearby community hospital in Oakland. Her first book, Be the Refuge: Raising the Voices of Asian American Buddhists, was published by North Atlantic Books in January 2021.

This episode is dedicated to Chenxing's friend and inspiring fellow crusader in Buddhism and race relations; the late, great, Angry Asian Buddhist, Aaron J. Lee:

"The real issue for young Buddhists in the Asian-American community is that there are very few Buddhist communities that they can go to without having to suppress part of their identity." – Aaron J. Lee

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