Returning to the Source
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“This is my life. Life is so precious, and I need to take responsibility for what I’m doing,” says
Ollie Tanner, a long-term meditation practitioner and scholar of Buddhism who has a PhD focused on early Buddhist textual studies.
In his first appearance on the podcast, Tanner traced his journey from early Vipassana practice in the S.N. Goenka tradition through deep immersion in Burmese Buddhist culture and rigorous study of the Buddha’s words at International Theravada Buddhist Missionary University in Yangon, reflecting on how practice, study, and lived generosity gradually integrated into a mature, self-directed path of Dhamma. Here, he delves more deeply into his move away from an emphasis on meditation techniques and intensive retreats to a sustained, daily engagement based on the earliest of the Buddha’s teachings. He frames his account around a single concern that has guided his decisions: how to understand and respond to suffering as clearly and honestly as possible.
Recapping his story, Tanner mentions his many years attending meditation retreats in the Goenka tradition, a stage of life in which his primary motivation was experiential transformation. He was drawn to meditation as a practical response to suffering, and the retreat structure offered discipline, ethical grounding, and a direct encounter with the mind. He describes this phase as profoundly beneficial. It provided stability, direction, and a lived sense that change was possible through sustained effort. Ethical conduct, daily sitting, and retreat participation formed a coherent framework that reshaped his behavior and priorities. He does not dismiss this period as naïve or misguided; rather, he treats it as an essential foundation that gave him the tools and seriousness required for deeper inquiry later on.
Over time, however, a different question emerged with increasing urgency. Alongside the benefits of practice, Tanner felt a growing need to understand what he was actually doing and why. The techniques had been transformative, but they also raised questions about purpose and direction that practice alone did not fully answer. That questioning led him to study Buddhism more systematically, beginning with several years in Myanmar. There, he entered an educational culture in which Abhidhamma and commentarial literature played a central role. The suttas were approached through interpretive frameworks that had developed over centuries, and mastery of those systems was treated as the key to understanding the Buddha’s teaching. Tanner learned a great deal during this time, and he emphasizes that this approach was internally coherent, rigorous, and deeply valued within that context.
However, a decisive shift occurred for him when he moved to Sri Lanka. There, he encountered a markedly different pedagogical emphasis. Rather than treating the commentaries and Abhidhamma as the primary lens through which the suttas were to be understood, teachers and scholars foregrounded the suttas, themselves. The commentarial tradition was presented as a later development, historically important but not definitive. This change in orientation had a profound effect on him. Reading the early texts directly, he did not experience them as abstract philosophy or historical artifacts. He encountered them as existential guidance, speaking directly to suffering, behavior, and the conditions of everyday life. The Buddha’s words appeared less like a hidden system requiring elaborate decoding and more like a practical map addressed to ordinary human experience.
When Tanner refers to “early Buddhist teachings,” he means the four main Nikāyas—the long, middle-length, connected, and numerical discourses—along with selected texts from the Khuddaka Nikāya and the Vinaya, the core monastic discipline. These texts, which most scholars regard as the earliest stratum of Buddhist literature, are characterized by dialogue, the “gradual training,” and an emphasis on ethical transformation. They show the Buddha engaging with people from many backgrounds, responding to concrete situations rather than prescribing a single, uniform method. For Tanner, this context matters. It reveals a teaching that is relational, adaptive, and deeply concerned with how people live, speak, and think from moment to moment.
His academic work led him to examine how Buddhist teachings developed after the Buddha’s death. He describes early councils convened to preserve the Dhamma and discipline, followed by doctrinal disagreements that emerged within the first few centuries. Texts such as the Kathāvatthu record disputes about personhood, liberation, and how mental processes worked in the tradition’s early history. The transmission of the Canon to Sri Lanka and its eventual commitment to writing marked another turning point. Centuries later, figures such as Buddhaghosa systematized commentarial thought, producing works like the Visuddhimagga that would profoundly shape orthodox Theravāda practice traditions, especially in Southeast Asia. Tanner does not portray this history as a story of decline or corruption. He sees it as an evolutionary process in which new interpretive frameworks emerged to meet the needs of different times and cultures.
Tanner argues that the contemporary insight meditation movement has inherited both the strengths and the limitations of that historical trajectory. The modern-day explosion of technique-centered approaches has proven remarkably effective at bringing large numbers of people who otherwise might not have been interested to meditation and to living a more ethical life. They offer clarity, structure, and a clear sense of progress. Yet the early discourses, as he reads them, do not revolve around mastering a particular technique; they are centered in recognizing suffering, understanding its causes, and learning to respond skillfully in the midst of ordinary life. He emphasizes that no single technique equates to the totality of the Buddha’s teaching, suggesting that something essential is lost when the Dhamma is distilled into a method—which is mostly applied in retreat settings—as opposed to a way of understanding to be cultivated in one’s daily life.
A central theme of his reflection concerns the difference between what he terms “absorbed doing” and “reflexive awareness.” Modern practitioners, he says, often live highly absorbed lives, moving from one task to the next without pausing to examine the mental qualities driving their actions. Meditation, when framed solely as a technique, can unintentionally replicate this pattern. One becomes absorbed in “doing the practice,” sometimes overlooking the presence of craving, aversion, or dullness that colors the mind. In the early teachings, Tanner sees a different emphasis. Mindfulness functions as a capacity to step back, to notice what is happening and why, and to respond appropriately. The hindrances are not treated as special obstacles that appear only on retreat. They are ordinary features of daily life, to be recognized and addressed whenever they arise.
This perspective leads him to question rigid ideas about what practice must look like. Sitting meditation remains valuable, but it is not automatically the most skillful response in every situation. For example, if drowsiness dominates the mind, walking may be more appropriate. If agitation is strong, ethical reflection or restraint may be needed before any formal practice bears fruit. Tanner frames this not as a rejection of discipline but as a maturation of discernment. Early discipline can be essential, especially when motivation is fragile. Over time, however, practice requires flexibility and honesty rather than adherence to fixed routines for their own sake.
He also reflects on conditioning and deconditioning. Meditation is often described as a process of undoing habitual reactions, and Tanner agrees that this can occur. Yet he notes that practice can also introduce new forms of conditioning, new identities, and new expectations. Recognizing this does not invalidate meditation; it underscores the need for ongoing reflection. As understanding deepens, practitioners must continually ask whether their habits, even spiritual ones, are still serving the purpose of reducing suffering.
Underlying all of these reflections is Tanner’s conviction that the Buddha’s teaching aims at independence. In the early texts, he points out, realization is often described in terms of crossing doubt, gaining confidence, and becoming independent of others in the practice. Teachers, traditions, and techniques serve a purpose, but they are not meant to be permanent authorities. Their value lies in whether they help practitioners see clearly for themselves what is wholesome and unwholesome, beneficial and harmful. When that clarity arises, any reliance on external dependence naturally falls away.
This commitment to independence also informs his response to tensions that can arise when practitioners broaden their study beyond a single tradition. He acknowledges the security and community that organized approaches provide, and he expresses gratitude for what they offered him earlier in life. At the same time, he questions efforts to limit where or how individuals may study once they feel compelled to look more directly at the Buddha’s words. Drawing on early Buddhist stories, he notes that seeking direct contact with the Dhamma, even when it means stepping beyond established affiliations, has precedents within the tradition itself.
Throughout the interview, Tanner returns repeatedly to daily life as the true field of practice. Retreats and periods of seclusion can deepen understanding, but the early teachings emphasize conduct, intention, and awareness in ordinary circumstances. Transformation unfolds not only on the cushion but in how one speaks, chooses, and relates throughout the day. For him, this integration represents not a retreat from practice but its fulfillment.
Regarding those who have practiced for many years but now find themselves questioning their direction, Tanner avoids prescriptive answers. He emphasizes responsibility and honesty over formulas. The early teachings, he suggests, reward careful attention and lived application rather than belief or loyalty. “There’s a treasure trove waiting in these teachings and such practical guidance is there to incorporate these teachings, not just as some special thing you do on retreat, but in your daily life.”