Editor’s note: This bonus episode comes fromthe podcast Problem Youth, Episode 113. Host Yang Shao and Professor Cheng Qing discuss the causes and misunderstandings behind the popularity of Buddhism, Chinese metaphysics, and mind-body-spirit practices, and ask what good practice really is.

02:49 What is spiritual consumerism, and what problems does it create?

09:57 Unable either to lie flat or keep competing: Buddhism sees this as humanity’s fundamental cognitive predicament—the trap of either-or thinking.

13:27 Historical discontinuities severed Chinese intellectuals from Buddhist traditions and partly explain today’s misunderstandings.

20:19 Cheng Qing believes that amid a general spiritual crisis, Chinese people can draw nourishment from traditional Eastern thought, because Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism place less emphasis on dualistic, either-or thinking.

26:46 Moral and legal discussion of social news is necessary, but a third level can be introduced: Buddhism’s view of the fundamental human predicament. This is not simple pardon or forgiveness, but compassion that does not rush to reveal hatred and resentment.

35:15 Some mind-body-spirit programs and new religions make practitioners dependent on helpers or groups with powerful egos. Buddhism holds that no substantial self exists; when nothing can be relied upon, awakening begins.

46:37 Today’s longing for communal spiritual practice reflects the poverty of public and spiritual life.

51:50 How did Cheng Qing change personally when moving from the history of political thought to Buddhist studies?

57:20 Why can Buddhism not be mastered like knowledge in the humanities and social sciences? Is meditation anti-intellectual?

01:11:40 Buddhism is universal because it is not a religion external to people; it always operates together with human cognition.