The Imperfect Buddha Podcast was born of necessity in 2015. A critical approach to contemporary Buddhism and spirituality more generally was missing from the podcast landscape. Anti-intellectualism, blatant self-promotion, and attachment to tradition, all seemed to get in the way of a genuinely critical engagement with Buddhist materials, practice, theory, and the real reasons for engaging in a practising life in the 21st century. The podcast set out to open up a new space of critique with the challenge to bring Buddhism out of its cosy, comfortable spaces, and challenge it by addressing taboos, going to places unknown, and daring to think differently.

The podcast started out as a team affair with Matthew O’Connell, and Stuart Baldwin as hosts. Since its inception, Stuart and Matthew have mixed guest interviews with explorative conversations on important topics. They have never shied away from taboos or more challenging material, all the while remembering to have a laugh. Stuart left the podcast in 2018 and since then Matthew has been the host of the podcast.

Since then a new emergence has taken place. A series of Turns have begun to emerge as outright challenges to the modern landscape of practice. These are only for the brave. Otherwise, we have themes and one off episodes covering all manner of topic. Explore, take your time, and go deep in to a world of practice beyond self-help and fantasies of enlightenment.

All of our episodes can be downloaded or listened to online for free at Soundcloud. There is also a dedicated Facebook page, and Twitter feed, where listeners can add comments, criticisms and compliments. Here is a playlist featuring some of our most recent episodes: Stream or download. If you want to catch earlier episodes, go straight to the Soundcloud site.