Podcast: This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Dean Sluyter, author of The Dharma Bum’s Guide to Western Literature, published this year by New World Library. Some of us were lucky enough to have one passionate, funny, inspiring English teacher who helped us fall in love with books. Add a lifetime of teaching Dharma — authentic, traditional approaches to meditation and awakening — and you get award-winning author Dean Sluyter. With droll humor and irreverent wisdom, he unpacks the Dharma of more than twenty major writers, from William Blake to Dr. Seuss, inspiring readers to deepen their own spiritual life and see literature in a fresh, new way: as a path of awakening. Dean Sluyter (pronounced “slighter”) has led meditation workshops and retreats throughout the US since 1970, at venues ranging from Ivy League colleges to maximum-security prisons. For thirty-three years he taught English and Literature of Enlightenment at the Pingry School. He lives in Santa Monica, California, where he sings with the Threshold Choir, plays old songs on the ukulele, and happily zips about on his Vespa. More information about Dean Sluyter's work can be found at:  Dean Sluyter's website: deansluyter.com,   The Dharma Bum's Guide at New World Library: www.newworldlibrary.com.