Shows / The Modern Taoist
The Modern Taoist
Taoism has a lot to say about modern life. The Modern Taoist is a podcast about Taoist philosophy, Taoist teachings and the ideas found in the Tao Te Ching, applied to the problems we actually face: stress, relationships, work, ambition, conflict, aging, loss, uncertainty and change. Hosted by Taoist teacher Kit Mann, each episode looks at an ancient idea and asks what it means for us now. How do we understand ourselves? How do we deal with things we can't control? How do we live with less…
Episodes
The Modern TaoistConvenient Isn’t Simple (Why The Tao is Getting More Important)
Simple Is Not the Same as Convenient: Why We’ll Need Taoism in 2027 Streaming services, cloud storage, sleep trackers, meal kits and password managers all…
The Modern TaoistTao Te Now - Chapter 9
How do you know when enough is enough? In this episode of Tao Te Now, Kit Mann goes through Chapter 9 of the Tao Te Ching line by line, using the Stephen…
- The Modern Taoist
Modern Taoist - Trailer
Ancient wisdom. Modern problems. Real life. Join Taoist teacher and veteran broadcaster Kit Mann for The Modern Taoist Podcast, where 2,500 years of Taoist…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check-In - Holiday Prep
Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming, and for a lot of people that means eight weeks of too many events, too much spending, family tension and not enough…
The Modern TaoistWhat Are You Afraid Of?
What are you afraid of, underneath the spiders and the public speaking? In this episode of The Modern Taoist, Kit Mann looks at four kinds of fear that run…
The Modern TaoistTao Te Now - Chapter 8
In Chapter 8 of the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu uses water to show how the Tao works in everyday life. Water nourishes everything without trying. It settles in the…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check-In: Get Grounded
Grounding is having a moment. Wellness culture calls it earthing. NIH researchers have been studying it. And the Taoist tradition has been practicing it for…
The Modern TaoistWhy We Make The Same Mistakes Over and Over
You already know what the pattern is. You’ve probably tried to stop it more than once. The problem isn’t awareness — it’s that awareness alone doesn’t reach…
The Modern TaoistTao Te Now - Chapter 7
The Tao Has Nothing at Stake — Chapter 7 of the Tao Te Ching Chapter 7 asks a question most people never think to ask: why does the Tao work the way it does?…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check-In: Nesting In The Fall
You Are Not Lazy. You Are In October. | The Modern Taoist Weekend Check-In Why do you feel like slowing down when autumn arrives? Why does the couch suddenly…
The Modern TaoistDo Taoists Believe In Ghosts?
Every October, people feel it — the sense that the dead are closer than usual. Halloween is just the pop-culture echo of something much older: the recognition…
The Modern TaoistTao Te Now Chapter 6
The Modern Taoist — Tao Te Now, Chapter 6 Kit Mann on the five lines in the Tao Te Ching that make the biggest claim in the book and then immediately make it…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check-In: Time to Rest
The Modern Taoist — Rest Is Not the Same Thing as Stopping Kit Mann on why the weekend you spent doing nothing still left you exhausted on Monday morning. This…
The Modern TaoistAsk Me Anything Vol 5
The Modern Taoist — Ask Me Anything | Episode 5 Kit Mann answers six listener questions in the latest Ask Me Anything episode of The Modern Taoist — covering…
The Modern TaoistThe Tao Te Now - Chapter 5
The Tao Te Now — Chapter 5 Chapter 5 opens with the most uncomfortable claim Lao Tzu has made so far. The Tao does not take sides. It gives birth to both good…
- The Modern Taoist
Weekend Check-In - Learning To Notice
In this weekend check-in, Kit Mann makes the case that the noticing practice does not start in the meditation sitting or in the hard conversation. It starts in…
The Modern TaoistWhy We Argue
Why do couples argue about the smallest things when the argument is rarely about the thing itself? In this episode of The Modern Taoist, Kit Mann explores the…
The Modern TaoistThe Tao Te Now - Chapter 4
The Tao Te Now — Chapter 4 Chapter 4 is eight lines. The shortest chapter yet. And in those eight lines, Lao Tzu makes three of the most striking observations…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check In: Time to Meditate
Sit Down Most people who find Taoism do so through the ideas. The philosophy resonates. The way of looking at things shifts. And then they go back to their…
The Modern TaoistNavigating Bad News
Navigating Bad News Bad news does not wait for a good time. It arrives in grocery stores and parking lots and at the dinner table in the middle of an otherwise…
The Modern TaoistThe Tao Te Now - Chapter 3
The Tao Te Now — Chapter 3 Chapter 3 is fifteen lines. Lao Tzu covers overvaluing, distrust, installed ambition, the confusion that arrives when certainty…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check-In: Changes Are Coming
You Knew This Was Coming Change arrived this week for someone listening to this. It always does. And the response, almost universally, is some form of: I never…
The Modern TaoistYou Are Not Required To Be Pure
You Are Not Required to Be Pure Someone looked across a table recently and said: I thought you were supposed to be some kind of guru or something. That…
The Modern TaoistTao Te Now - Chapter 2
The Tao Te Now — Chapter 2 Chapter 2 follows immediately from where Chapter 1 left off, and it wastes no time. The moment you decide what is beautiful…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check-In - Be Kind To Yourself
Find Some Time for Yourself This Weekend When did you last do something purely for yourself? Not to recover so you can work better. Not to be a better partner…
The Modern TaoistSpeak Your Truth
Speaking Your Truth There is the thing you actually think. And there is the thing you say instead. Not because you are dishonest. But because somewhere along…
The Modern TaoistTao Te Now - Chapter One
The Tao Te Now — Chapter 1 This is a new series. Every week, alongside the main Tuesday episode and the weekend check-in, we are going to sit with one chapter…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check-In - When You're The Only One
What do you do when the people closest to you are not doing any of this? When your partner escalates every disagreement. When your family runs on guilt and…
The Modern TaoistWhen Life Feels Stagnant
When Life Feels Stagnant Most conversations about stagnation start with the same question: how do I get the momentum back? In this episode, Kit Mann argues…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check-In: Back To Basics
This Is Not Just a Philosophy Podcast A lot of people listen to shows like this one the same way they read books they find interesting. They take something in…
The Modern TaoistStop Going To War With Your Past Self
Most people who have done real work on themselves end up in the same strange place. They have genuinely changed. They are not who they were. And they cannot…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check in -There Is No "But" in Taoism
I love what Taoism says about living in the present, but I can't stop worrying. I know I need to let this go, but I've been hurt too many times. I'm sorry I…
The Modern TaoistLet's Not Try So Hard
Lets Not Try So Hard Most people who begin a serious spiritual practice end up in the same place eventually. Not enlightened. Exhausted. Every difficult moment…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check-In - The End of Summer
The Summer Is Almost Over — And That Is Not a Bad Thing Something happens in late August that most people feel immediately. The light shifts. The shadows are…
The Modern TaoistReconnecting in a Disconnected World
The schedule belongs to the employer. The food comes from somewhere you'll never see. The light is set by a switch. And the connection to natural cycles that…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check-In: The Tao is Everywhere. Just Look
The Tao Is Already There — You Just Have to Look It's in the weed pushing through the sidewalk crack. It's in the dog who is completely inside the joy of this…
The Modern TaoistWhat is Love, Anyway
We have spent our lives being taught that love needs a relationship to be real. That loving someone who doesn't love you back is a wound to be healed. That…
The Modern TaoistStop Explaining Your Every Move
Stop Explaining Yourself Most people have developed the habit of providing a reason for every decision they make. Not just the big ones. The small ones too…
The Modern TaoistThe Thinly Spread Life
The Thinly Spread Life Look at your week. Count the things that have a claim on you right now. Now ask yourself honestly: is there one thing on that list…
The Modern TaoistDon't Be An Employee Of Your Own Mind
Stop Being an Employee of Your Own Mind Most people wake up on a Saturday morning and before the coffee is made, before anything has actually happened, the…
The Modern TaoistThe Big Questions
Carrying Yourself Whole Chapter 10 of the Tao Te Ching is unusual. Instead of stating, Lao Tzu asks. Can you carry your body and soul together without…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check-In - Less is the Practice
Chapter 48 — Why Less Is the Practice Most people who come to Taoism hit Chapter 48 and stop cold. Nothing is done and nothing is left undone. It reads like a…
The Modern TaoistMotivation is NOT required
You Don't Need to Feel Motivated Motivation is not a magical condition that arrives and makes action possible. It is what action produces. And the person…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check- In - 3 Taoist Things
Three Things a Taoist Does Every Day Most conversations about Taoism stay at the level of ideas. The water metaphor. The wisdom of not forcing. The value of…
The Modern TaoistIts is NEVER the situation that is the problem
It Is Never the Situation Something goes wrong. And the immediate experience, almost every time, is that the situation is the problem — that the way forward…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check-In - Speaking In Absolutes
Speaking in Absolutes Is a Form of Giving Up I will never. This always happens. I'm just not the kind of person who. These sentences feel like honesty. Like…
The Modern TaoistYou Don't Have To Win Everyday
Life Is Not Asking You to Win Today Most people end hard days feeling like they failed them. Not because anything went wrong, exactly — but because the…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check-In - When Protection Becomes Possession
This weekend, I share a very personal experience that led me to wrestle with a much bigger question: What is the difference between protecting something and…
The Modern TaoistWhen The World is On Fire - Be The Rain
When the World Is on Fire, Be the Rain Some seasons of life don't arrive one thing at a time. The relationship breaks, the job disappears, the family tips into…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check-in: Why Stillness Feels Like Doing Nothing
A listener wrote in this week with something a lot of people are feeling but haven't said out loud: they've been trying to do the things the practice asks —…
The Modern TaoistFlexibility - The Strength in Yielding
The Strength in Yielding Most people would say they're flexible. And then life actually asks them to be. This episode examines the gap between believing you're…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check-In - The Over Organized Life
The Organized Life Is Not the Tao There's an entire industry built on the promise that better systems will finally make life feel manageable. More structure…
The Modern TaoistThe Closest Distance
The Closest Distance The person sitting across from you at dinner. The one who has seen you at your worst and stayed. The one whose breathing you know, whose…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check-in: The Little Things are the Big Things
The Little Things Are the Big Things Most people are waiting for their life to get interesting. The trip that hasn't happened yet. The version of things that…
The Modern TaoistThe Storm You're Standing In
When life gets genuinely hard, the advice to "be present" can feel less like wisdom and more like an instruction to sit quietly in pain. This episode is for…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check In: What Taoism Is and Isn't
Many people discover Taoism during a difficult season of life. A relationship ends. Work becomes overwhelming. Anxiety starts taking up more space than it used…
The Modern TaoistThe Unfixed Mind
What if not everything requires a response? And what if not every meaningful moment needs to be recorded? In this episode, we explore Chapter 49 of the Tao Te…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check-In: The Monday Dreads
Why do so many people start suffering for Monday before Monday even arrives? In this Taoist Check-In, we explore the familiar feeling of Sunday dread and the…
The Modern TaoistThe Strength You Were Born With
What if the exhaustion you feel isn’t coming from doing too much… but from forcing too much? In this episode, we explore Chapter 55 of the Tao Te Ching and one…
The Modern TaoistWeekend Check-In: Desire vs Need
We spend a surprising amount of life treating desires like needs. Not because wanting things is wrong, but because somewhere along the way we begin believing…