740. Lawrence Pintak – Lessons from the Mountaintop

Buddha at the Gas Pump

Rick Archer

Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy, Spirituality, Society & Culture

4.7 • 695 Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2025

⏱️ 119 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Lawrence Pintak has spent his life grounded in facts while fascinated by the ethereal. An award-winning former CBS News Middle East correspondent with a PhD in Islamic Studies, Pintak has been a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism for three decades and is an avid student of the perennial truths at the core of the world’s religions. The author of seven books at the intersection of religion, media, and policy, his reporting and analysis on religion and international affairs has been published by The New York Times, Foreign Policy, the Washington Post, and many of the world’s leading media organizations. He also wrote about Buddhism and Eastern traditions for Shambhala Sun/Lion’s Roar, Buddhadharma, Beliefnet.com and others before 9/11 drew his focus back to the Middle East. Pintak’s most recent nonfiction book, America & Islam, was a finalist for the 2020 Religion News Association award for Religion Reporting Excellence. Books: Lessons from the Mountaintop: Ten Modern Mystics and Their Extraordinary Lives America & Islam: Soundbites, Suicide Bombs and the Road to Donald Trump Website: pintak.com Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Interview recorded October 4, 2025

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	No matter which path you take, when you get to the mountain top, you are in the same place.
0:04.7	And that getting to that place requires you to be anchored in at least one or in a tradition.
0:11.4	You can learn from other traditions, but you need that anchor.
0:14.9	If you don't have that anchor, if you're not rooted in a tradition, and you have these kinds of spiritual breakthroughs,
0:21.4	you don't know what to do with them, and it can really screw you up.
0:31.0	Welcome to Buddha at the gas pump.
0:33.4	My name is Rick Archer.
0:35.4	Buddha at the gas pump is an ongoing series of conversations with spiritually awakening people
0:41.4	or about spiritual topics or scientists who studies the interface of science and spirituality.
0:49.0	Most of you have seen episodes, but if this is new to you and you'd like to check out previous ones, there are 740 of
0:56.5	them now, go to backgap.com and look under the interviews menu where you'll see them arranged
1:02.7	in several different ways. This program is made possible through the support of appreciative
1:08.3	listeners and viewers, so if you appreciate it and we'd like to help support it,
1:13.1	there are PayPal buttons on every page of the site,
1:15.6	and then there's a page explaining alternatives to PayPal.
1:19.5	My guest today is Lawrence Pintak.
1:22.2	I'm going to read his whole bio here,
1:23.9	because I've asked him to tell us this stuff.
1:25.9	I'm sure he'll leave out a lot.
1:27.4	He's very modest. That's the first time anybody's accused me of that. Yeah. bio here because I've asked him to tell us this stuff. I'm sure he'll leave out a lot.
1:31.8	He's very modest. That's the first time anybody's accused me of that. Right.
1:37.1	So, but anyway, I think you'll find it interesting to see what his background is because it'll help to put our whole conversation into a more, a better informed context.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Rick Archer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Rick Archer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.