214 - Skillful Means (10-Year Anniversary Episode)
12/18/202525 min
In this episode, I celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the Secular Buddhism podcast by announcing a new AI-powered website, EightfoldPath.com, which serves as a modern application of the Buddhist concept of skillful means. Skillful means, or upaya, is the idea that teachings should adapt to meet individuals where they are, using whatever tools or methods are most effective for reducing suffering and cultivating wisdom. Throughout history, technologies like writing, the printing press, and the internet have served as skillful means for transmitting Buddhist teachings, and now artificial intelligence is the latest iteration. The new website features "Noah AI,"...
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First 90 secondsNoah Rasheta· Host0:00
The Secular Buddhism Podcast is now on eightfoldpath.com with transcripts, AI chat, and more. Visit eightfoldpath.com. [gentle music] Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Secular Buddhism Podcast. This is episode 214, a special 10-year anniversary episode. I am your host, Noah Rochetta, and today I have some exciting news I want to share with you. But before we begin, remember you don't need to use what you learned from Buddhism to be a Buddhist. You can use what you learned to simply be a better whatever you already are. I want to start out by telling you about two passions that have shaped my life. The first is Buddhism, these teachings that have transformed how I understand suffering, the nature of my own mind, how I relate to difficulty, and how I navigate this complex experience of being human. The second is technology. Now, I know those two might seem like strange companions. Buddhism often gets associated with simplicity, with retreating from the modern world, with unplugging and disconnecting. And technology, well, technology often gets blamed for making us more distracted, more disconnected,