Editor’s note: This bonus episode comes from the podcastSalty Lemon Seven, Episode 185. In this episode, host Cao Ning and Professor Cheng Qing discuss how Buddhism views today’s spiritual predicament and what China might learn from Japan. They are joined by Maomao of Variable Business School.

04:28 A Buddhist course becomes an unexpected hit: what is happening to Chinese spiritual life?

08:20 When the comments section becomes a confessional: aging, illness, and death cannot be dissolved

14:30 Happiness does not need to prove itself

17:30 Concerts temporarily liberate the individual

21:30 The atomization of families and disappearance of ritual

28:19 How Buddhism responds to contemporary social problems

33:10 To slow down, give yourself a reason you can wholeheartedly accept

38:57 Buddhism is a theoretical and practical system for settling body and mind and dispelling suffering

42:18 Designing the journey to Japan

50:12 How we look while traveling

55:16 What is special about being there in person?

68:05 Are you telling me how to live?

73:30 Self-exploration does not end hardship; it begins a new kind

76:05 The influence of D. T. Suzuki and Shunryu Suzuki on the postwar West

79:06 Understanding human cognition is the foundation of all knowledge

83:15 Why corporate culture fails to penetrate