Sam speaks with Christopher Titmuss, a senior Dharma teacher, former Theravada Buddhist monk, and author. They discuss Christopher’s background, including his extensive travels and the “immortal words'' that inspired his Buddhist ordination; Christopher’s encounters with various teachers across the East; the differences between goal-oriented and direct approaches to awakening; difficulties with the term “atheism”; the need for secular alternatives to some useful elements of religion; embracing vs. disidentifying with discursive thought; liabilities associated with guru-centered spiritual communities; and other topics.

Christopher Titmuss is a senior Dharma teacher in the West. His teachings focus on ethics, insight meditation (vipassana), the expansive heart, and inquiry into emptiness and liberation. He is a poet, photographer, blogger, social critic, and the author of 22 books, including Light on Enlightenment, Spiritual Roots of Mindfulness, and The Political Buddha. He is also the founder of the Mindfulness Teacher Training Course. More than 1,000 of his talks, inquiry sessions, and guided meditations are freely available on www.archive.org. He lives in Totnes, Devon, England.