Ethan visits a recurrent conversation he’s been having with his students, his friends, and within his own mind: the dissonance between feeling like your personal life and close community are in basically good places, while simultaneously raising your gaze to see the immense suffering and chaos of the world. How can we hold those two and find our compassion and skillful means? Framing thoughts around the massive ICE raids that are tearing families apart, followed by the subsequent mass protests in Los Angeles and across the country, Ethan examines how we can remain grounded in our own beings and work with any guilt we might feel for feeling safer than others right now. How can we stay grounded in ourselves and leverage what is classically called the “Precious Human Birth” to experience a harmonized practice on three levels of showing up: the personal, the interpersonal, and the collective?

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 Meditation Group starts up again on May 15th, and a special podcast/meditation on “Intuition” was be released to paid subscribers this month. 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.

Check out all the cool offerings at our podcast sponsor Dharma Moon, including the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training program beginning June 13th, 2025. Free video courses co-taught by Ethan and others, such as The Three Marks of Existence, are also available for download.

What is resentment? Why is it so corrosive? How can we work with our resentments? How can we overcome a victim mentality while still protecting ourselves, protecting others, and protecting truth? In this solo episode, Ethan uses a classic Tantric Buddhist contemplative slogan from the Lojong mind training tradition that translates as either “Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment” or “stay close to your resentment.” Enjoy the listen!

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.

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 Meditation Group starts up again on May 15th, and a special podcast/meditation on “Intuition” was be released to paid subscribers this month. You can also subscribe to The Road Home podcast wherever you get your pods (Apple, Spotify,Ethan’s Website, etc).

Check out all the cool offerings at our podcast sponsor Dharma Moon, including the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training program beginning June 13th, 2025. Free video courses co-taught by Ethan and others, such as The Three Marks of Existence, are also available for download.

In a spontaneous episode, Ethan discusses grief and loss while processing multiple events. At a recent compassion meditation retreat, colleague and friend René Fay gave a presentation where she discussed the need to “Microdose Grief,” to take it in little by little so that we can honor the small moments of loss to develop familiarity with the experience when the big waves come. Through remembering the life and the recent death of a dharma friend, Ethan explores a famous buddhist quote about impermanence (“The Cup Is Already Broken”) and explores how grief can be used as a tool for popping our hearts and minds outside of the confines of linear time, into the spontaneous presence and open-heartedness of what the Zen masters call “Being Time.”

This episode of The Road Home is dedicated to the memory of Ralph De La Rosa, who was a friend (and a guest on the podcast) who passed away suddenly on May 10, 2025. Ralph was a dharma teacher and trauma therapist, as well as the author of three books which each explored Internal Family Systems and Somatic Therapy in relation to Tantric Buddhist thought: Outshining Trauma, Don’t Tell Me To Relax, and Monkey is the Messenger. For resources for processing Ralph’s passing, you can follow the information posted in the youtube video, or reach out to Ralph’s assistant, Amanda Ludwig. Visit Ethan's Substack for the show notes that include the prophetic and poignant last Dharma talk that Ralph gave the day before he/they passed away.

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 Meditation Group starts up again on May 15th, and a special podcast/meditation on “Intuition” will be released to paid subscribers this Friday, May 2nd. You can also subscribe to The Road Home podcast wherever you get your pods (Apple, Spotify,Ethan’s Website, etc).

Check out all the cool offerings at our podcast sponsor Dharma Moon, including the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training program beginning June 13th, 2025. Free video courses co-taught by Ethan and others, such as The Three Marks of Existence, are also available for download.