Buddhist Geeks

In 2020 Charlie Awberry & Jared Janes came together to start a new kind of Vajrayana Sangha, called Evolving Ground. In this conversation, Vince Horn, was joined by both Charlie & Jared, as well as by Charlie's partner David Chapman–who has been becoming more involved in the project as of late–to explore what they've been up to this past year. In addition, they discuss some of the similarities between what is happening in Buddhist Geeks and with Evolving Ground, both of which are communities that are striving to approach things from a meta-systematic point of view.

Episode Links:

🔗 Evolving Ground

🔗 Evolving Ground Roles

🐥 Evolving Ground on Twitter

🔗 Meaningness

👤 Robert Kegan

🔗 Buddhist Geeks Network

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In this episode of Buddhist Geeks, we're re-sharing a conversation that happened on the Meta-Perspective show, hosted by James Landoli, in which James invited Vince F Horn and Daniel Ingram into a far-ranging dialogue, exploring some of the meta-perspectives and real human complexity that goes along with discussing dharma lineage in the 21st century.

Episode Links:

📺 Meta-Perspective

👤 Daniel Ingram

🔗 The Emergent Phenomenology Research Consortium

🎧 Shinzen Young on Remembering William (Bill) Hamilton

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In this dharma talk–taken from a Pragmatic Dharma Retreat–Kenneth Folk speaks about Bahiya, the best student in the history of the world, and about the worst student in the history of the world, none other than the Buddha himself.

At the end, Kenneth leads this 4-part practice:

1) Inventory - Ask yourself: is there any unpleasant tension in the body? "Yes, there's tension in my neck, forehead, arm pits, mid-back, right hip, etc."

2) Release tension consciously

3) Surrender fully to the experience

4) Releasing & surrendering are last ditch efforts to control. Things are as they are, "in the sensed is only the sensed."

Episode Links:

• Kenneth Folk
• Bahiya Sutta

Memorable Quotes:

"Mara doesn't get to have an opinion about that." – Kenneth Folk

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In this dharma teaching, given to a cohort of teachers-in-training, Vince F. Horn gives a broad strokes introduction to the 2nd Great Turning, or Iteration, of Buddhism, known as Mahayana Buddhism. Vince speaks about the 2nd Iteration's emphasis on emptiness (sunyata), the understanding of emptiness as interdependence, and the two equal wings of liberation: emptiness & compassion. Finally, he explores the primary ideal of the Mahayana tradition, the Bodhisattva.

Episode Links:

👤 Vince Fakhoury Horn

📄 Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma

👤 Judith Simmer-Brown

👤 Nāgārjuna

📄 Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Root Verses on the Middle Way)

🔗 Bodhicitta

🔗 The 10 Fetters in Early Buddhism

👤 Śāriputra

Memorable Quotes:

"Compassion is the movement of emptiness." - Joseph Goldstein

"The alarming fact is that any realization of depth carries a terrible burden: those who are allowed to see are simultaneously saddled with the obligation to communicate that vision in no uncertain terms: that is the bargain. You were allowed to see the truth under the agreement that you would communicate it to others (that is the ultimate meaning of the bodhisattva vow). And therefore, if you have seen, you simply must speak out. Speak out with compassion, or speak out with angry wisdom, or speak out with skillful means, but speak out you must." – Ken Wilber

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In this dharma teaching / guided meditation–given during a Pragmatic Dharma Retreat in 2018–Kenneth Folk re-enacts the Anupada Sutta, an early Buddhist text in which the Buddha recounts a tale of Sāriputta moving through each of the 8 jhanas (meditative absorptions), completing the series with the attainment of nibanna. May you awaken while contemplating these instructions!

Episode Links:

👤 Kenneth Folk

📜 The Anupada Sutta

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Kevin Owocki, founder of GitCoin–a decentralized platform & organization focused on building and funding the open web–joins Vince Horn co-founder of Buddhist Geeks, to explore the potential of bringing together the world of Dharma and the world of DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations).

Episode Links:

🔗 GitCoin

📄 What is Web 3.0?

📄 Decentralized autonomous organization

📄 NFTs, explained

💡 Join the SanghaDAO Group

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In this pragmatic dharma retreat talk Vince Fakhoury Horn explores Meditation Track A–the gradual track–and Meditation Track B–the sudden track.

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In this conversation, Vince Fakhoury Horn is joined by Buddhist meditation teacher Kate Johnson, author of Radical Friendship, a newly released book which found its roots in a talk that Kate gave in 2013 at an in-person Buddhist Geeks Conference, entitled Waking Up to Power & Privilege in Our Communities. Vince & Kate speak about a variety of topics related to practicing dharma and living together in an unjust world.

Episode Links:

👤 Kate Johnson

📖 Radical Friendship: Seven Ways to Love Yourself and Find Your People in an Unjust World by Kate Johnson

🎙The Dharma of Difference, with Kate Johnson

📺 Waking Up to Power & Privilege in Our Communities, with Kate Johnson

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In this talk, recorded during a Pragmatic Dharma Retreat, Kenneth Folk lays out a meta-system for understanding the different understandings of deep Jhana or meditative absorption and their relationship to the Theravada Buddhist system, the progress of insight knowledges (aka Ñanas).

memorable links:

💬 "So we could call this olympic level, nut job jhana." – Kenneth Folk

💬 "The insight knowledges are jhanic states." – Kenneth Folk

episode links:

🔗 Kenneth Folk Dharma

🎙 Meditating in the Goldilocks Zone, with Vince F. Horn

📄 The Progress of Insight by The Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw

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In this special guided meditation, recorded during a Pragmatic Dharma Retreat, Kenneth Folk does a masterful job of pointing out the four progressive stages of meditative absorption, colloquially known as jhana. For best results, we suggest finding a place to listen to this episode, where you can remain undistracted.

episode links:

• Kenneth Folk
• Mindfulness Retreats Online

memorable quotes:

"Like a skilled wine taster, one day you will learn to recognize these flavors." – Kenneth Folk

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In this dharma talk, Vince Fakhoury Horn talks about the Goldilocks Principle as it's applied to meditation. He illustrates this Goldilocks Zone–just the right amount–by talking about a spectrum between Concentration and Investigation. How do find the middle way, i.e. the Goldilocks Zone, in our own practice?

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Teaching by Noliwe Alexander, given during a Mindfulness Retreat Online.

This Open Source Dharma content is offered using a Creative Commons by attribution 4.0 license.

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In this episode of the Buddhist Geeks Podcast Vince Horn is interviewed by Tasshin Foggleman. The episode originally appeared on Tasshin's Reach Truth Podcast, and is now airing here on Buddhist Geeks.

During the interview Tasshin asks Vince to share about the evolution of the Buddhist Geeks organization, including an in-depth exploration of Transparent Generosity, Holacracy, & Open Source Dharma–three of the elements of the Buddhist Geeks organization that make it particularly unique. This conversation is framed in terms of the evolution of dharma, looking at how dharma evolves not just through updates to the language of its teachings and practices, but also through the very structure in which those things are packaged.

Episode Links:

👤 Tasshin Foggleman

👤 Vince Fakhoury Horn

📺 Reach Truth Podcast

🔗 Tasshin @ Twitter

🔗 Vince @ Twitter

🔗 Transparent Generosity

🔗 Holacracy

🎙 Liberating the Soul of Organization

🎙 Organizational Enlightenment

🔗 Open Source Dharma

📖 Education in a Time Between Worlds, by Zak Stein

📖 Integral Spirituality, by Ken Wilber

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In this episode Vince Fakhoury Horn is joined by Gabriel Menegale Wison, one of the authors of the recently released book, “Compassionate Conversations: How to Speak and Listen from the Heart.” In this dialogue, we explore Gabriel’s background as an Integral Zen practitioner & Facilitator, looking specifically at how he brings the art of conversation into difficult areas of relationship. Our conversation centers particularly around how to have difficult conversations related to racial identity.

Memorable Quotes

“I want to engage in the exploration of more radical identities that can cohere us cooperatively so that we can forge worlds together.” - Gabriel Wilson

“I think there is a lot of beauty to the creative frictions between our different identities and I think if you want to work with them, they will literally produce more dynamic identities that can include those differences.” - Gabriel Wilson

Episode Links

👤 Gabriel Menegale Wilson

📖 “Compassionate Conversations: How to Speak and Listen from the Heart” by Diane Musho Hamilton, Gabriel Menegale Wilson, and Kimberly Loh

🎧 Everything the Same, Everything Different, with Diane Musho Hamilton

👤 Diane Musho Hamilton

👤 Kimberly Loh

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In this episode Vince Fakhoury Horn is joined in dialogue with Lama Rod Owens, author of the newly released book, Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation.

Memorable Quotes

“To begin with this is not a mindfulness book on how to bypass anger and focus on happiness. Nor is this a book about using any other spiritual path to transform the nature of anger into something more profound or transcendent. This book is about facing our anger and welcoming it as a teacher and friend so it can help us to benefit ourselves and others.” – Lama Rod Owens

Episode Links

👤 Lama Rod Owens

👤 Lama Rod on Twitter

📖 Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation by Lama Rod Owens

📖 Black and Buddhist - Lama Rod Owens (contributing author)

🔗 Dr. Joy Degrew’s theory on Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome

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In this episode Vince Fakhoury Horn is joined in dialogue with CEO and Head Teacher at the popular meditation app Brightmind, Toby Sola. 

Memorable Quotes

"The broader mission of Brightmind is to help you establish positive feedback between your meditative practice and your ability to make the world a better place." - Toby Sola

Episode Links

📱 Brightmind Meditation

👤 Toby on Twitter

🔗 Monastic Academy

👤 Shinzen Young

👤 Soryu Forall

🔗 Tom Brown Jr.’s Tracker School

🔗 Forte Labs

📖 Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein

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In this timely episode–released just weeks before the 2020 US Election–host Vince Fakhoury Horn is joined by human rights advocate, public intellectual, and old friend Theo Horesh.  Theo is a long-time meditator, was one of the earliest guests on Buddhist Geeks, and is author of several books, including the one that serves as the basis for this conversation: “The Fascism this Time : And the Global Future of Democracy.”  During this conversation Vince & Theo explore what Fascism is–both historically & philosophically–how nihilism and despair are playing out in global society right now (especially in America), the many dimensions of human identity that are at play for us all, and the way that our current “split-level development” involves both a profound regression, as well as the potential for transcendence in service of the public good.

Memorable Quotes

“Marx once noted that all great historical events repeat themselves, the first time as tragedy, and the second as farce.  And what we’re seeing now is a farce, but we should take it seriously, because it’s the same nihilistic drives that lie behind it.” - Theo Horesh

“Fascism is going to end in destruction for a couple of key reasons.  One is it’s driven by nihilism. The second thing is that what sustains it, is its insulation from reality.  So, it’s not just going to be irrational in its approach to things, it’s going to be completely divorced from reality, and as time goes on it’ll be more and more divorced.” - Theo Horesh

Episode Links

📖 The Fascism this Time : And the Global Future of Democracy

📖 Convergence: The Globalization of Mind

🎙 Convergence (Theo Horesh’s Talk from the 2014 Buddhist Geeks Conference)

📃 The revenge of the 'Oxy electorate' helped fuel Trump's election upset

📃 Cosmopolitanism

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In this episode Vince Fakhoury Horn is joined in dialogue with journalist, educator, & scholar Greg Thomas to meditate together on race. Greg’s work is informed by Integral Theory, the philosophies of Albert Murray and Ralph Ellison, and draws upon the rich history of the African American experience and Jazz. In this dialogue, Greg shares his reflections on race, from an integral perspective, exploring the potential for liberation–especially from racial ignorance & animus–on personal, cultural, & institutional levels.

Memorable Quotes

“Race is just one more tool of the ego to separate and to create structures–whether it’s subjective, inter-subjective or objective structures–to separate, divide and categorize.” - Greg Thomas

“There is a truth to the fact that we all are one, and that we share in the ineffability of the source, of the fullness of emptiness.  And all these things that signify–because we’re using human language–that our origins, our source, from and through which all things come and flow, and towards which we’re moving.  But in-between time, on this human level, in this particular incarnation we have to deal with the reality of materiality, of the material plane that we’re on.  That materiality itself, is going to bring suffering.  Duality will do that.  Non-duality is Oneness.  We have to navigate skillfully, using skillful means.  And that’s where we get to Wisdom.  Wisdom allows us to be able to play with these dualities. ... [Wisdom] takes into consideration I, We, & It, it takes into consideration the dual & the non-dual, it takes into consideration the reality of the oneness and the particularity of the many.” - Greg Thomas

“They have planted and we ate. We plant and others will eat.” - Siddho Ahmad Fakhoury, Vince’s Great-Grandfather on planting olive trees

Episode Notes:

👤 Greg Thomas’s Online Portfolio

👤 The Jazz Leadership Project

👤 Greg Thomas @ Integral Life

🔗 Integral Life

👤 Diane Musho Hamilton

👤 Anthony Appiah

👤 Danielle Allen @ Twitter

📃 Ralph Ellison

📖 “My Grandmother’s Hands” by Resmaa Menakem

📖 “Turning the Wheel: Essays on Buddhism and Writing” by Charles Johnson

👤 Bell Hooks

🔗 Essentialism

📖 “Mindful of Race” by Ruth King

📃 Jazz vs. Racism by Greg Thomas

📖 “The Ethics of Identity” by Kwame Anthony Appiah

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In this episode, Vince Fakhoury Horn is joined in conversation with Richard D. Bartlett. Rich is the author of Patterns for Decentralised Organising and a contributing author for Better Work Together. He is a co-founder of Loomio and The Hum. He is a Director and longstanding member of Enspiral. In finding where convergence resides among them, Vince and Rich explore many interesting topics including Decentralised Organising, Microsolidarity, Fractal Narcissism, and the Occupy Movement.

Memorable Quotes

“In a time of massive disruption, where the stakes are really high and everyone has skin in the game, who is saying stuff that feels sensible? That feels like it’s giving me guidance?” - Richard D. Bartlett

“The world is great when there is a huge variety of different ways of being and they form some complex, uncontrollable network. That we’re all enmeshed together and we’re all playing different parts…” - Richard D. Bartlett

Episode Links

👤 Richard D. Bartlett, aka Rich Decibels

👤 Rich @ Twitter

👤 Rich @ Medium

📖 Better Work Together

📖 Patterns for Decentralised Organising

🔗 Enspiral

🔗 Loomio

🔗 The Hum

🔗 Microsolidarity

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In this episode, Vince Fakhoury Horn is joined by long-time partner, and Teaching Lead of Buddhist Geeks, Emily Horn, to meditate together on race. They discuss the unique opportunity for transformation presenting itself to white people, and share some of their personal stories regarding racial conditioning, and how/why this largely invisible conditioning makes this conversation on difference so difficult to engage in.  

Memorable Quotes

“I know that trust is earned, I can’t just put up a sticker on my wall and call it safe, no matter how much I’m dedicated to diversity & inclusion.” - Emily Horn

“As an individual my experience didn’t just come from nowhere. It’s actually part of this heritage, this 4.5 billion year heritage, that goes back to the Big Bang.” - Vince Fakhoury Horn 

Episode Links

🔗 Black Lives Matter

🔗 Naropa University

📺 Integral Justice Warriors

📄 Transparent Generosity

🔗 Holacracy

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In this episode, Vince Horn is joined in conversation with Jason Snyder, PhD. Co-host of the Both/And Podcast and an adjunct lecturer at ASU’s Department of Sustainable Development, Jason joins Vince in a sit-down conversation, where they discuss the topics of memetic mediation, metamodernism, integral theory, responding to the meta-crisis, sensemaking and more.

Memorable Quotes:

"We are all complicit in history whether we like it or not. Both the good parts and the bad parts. I think that speaks to the notion of interconnectedness." – Jason Snyder

"How do we respond to the meta-crisis? We have to create this new kind of collective intelligence that as humans we can accurately respond to the serious transition we’re in." – Jason Snyder

Episode Links:

👤 Jason Snyder

🎙 Both/And Podcast

🎙 Both/And: Decoding Ourselves with Vince Horn

🎙 Deconstructing Yourself

📃 On Memetic Mediation & Perspectival Pidginism

🔗 Integral Life

🔗 The Evolving Self

👤 Hanzi Freinacht

👤 Clare Graves

🔗 The Bahá’í Faith

📃 New Atheism

👤 Shinzen Young

👤 Daniel Ingram

🎙 Buddha at the Gas Pump

👤 Otto Scharmer

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In this episode we’re joined again by meditator & medical doctor Daniel M. Ingram, to discuss his current efforts at helping mainstream knowledge of the common patterns of experience that unfold during contemplative practice–commonly referred to as “the stages of insight” in the early Buddhist tradition–so that this knowledge can become integrated into our modern medical systems.

Episode Links:

👤 Daniel M. Ingram

🔗 The Dharma Overground

📃 The Progress of Insight

📃 What is Exploding Head Syndrome? 

📃 The Varieties of Religious Experience

🔗 Consciousness Hacking

🔗 Kathryn “Katy” Devaney

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From practicing hindu tantra with a guru he met at a new age bookstore in Chicago, to building open source hexayurts on the playa of burning man, to helping launch the second biggest crypto-network, Vinay Gupta is a man on a mission. Bringing a Vaderesque approach to spiritual, social, cultural, & engineering topics, Vinay offers an ultra-compelling apocoloptimistic vision of the future. -Vince Fakhoury Horn

Memorable Quotes:

"Social problems can be fixed with social change, and engineering problems have to be fixed with better technology. And most of what's wrong with capitalism is engineering limits not social limits, and we get very confused about this." - Vinay Gupta

Episode Links:

👤 Vinay Gupta

🔗 Mattereum

🔗 The Hexayurt Project

🔗 Industrialisation

🔗 Haidakhan Babaji

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The founder of Open Source Ecology, Marcin Jakubowski, shares his journey of going from being a PhD student in Fusion Physics to meditating daily & building the modular groundwork for an open source economy of abundance.  

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In this episode, Vince Horn is joined in dialogue, once again, by Diane Musho Hamilton–Zen teacher, professional meditator, and Integral facilitator. The conversation begins with Vince's reflections on an Integral Facilitator Training that he attended with Diane, where a bulk of the training centered around facilitating small group conversations around issues related to differences of identity. After discussing a number of topics that are often taken up in the Social Justice movement, and an Integral perspective on these topics, the conversation turned toward the role of the Teacher, and on transmission, hierarchy, embodiment, feedback, and projection.

Memorable Quotes:

“I found that rather than trying to teach stage models to groups, that I like to invoke them into models.” - Diane Musho Hamilton

“We don’t challenge basketball coaches the way we challenge spiritual teachers.” - Diane Musho Hamilton

“Every moment of adulation is followed by a great disappointment.” - Diane Musho Hamilton

Episode Links:

👤 Diane Musho Hamilton

🔗 Ten Directions, Integral Facilitator Training

📄 Everything the Same, Everything Different by Diane Hamilton

📺 Saturday Night Live: Dinner Discussion

🔗 Two Arrows Zen

🔗 Black Elk

🔗 Worldcentric

📺 Future Thinkers Interviews with Ken Wilber

🔗 The Five Stages of Grief

📖 Compassionate Conversations by Diane Musho Hamilton, Gabriel Wilson, & Kimberly Loh

📺 The Role and Importance of the Teacher by Ken McLeod 

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In this episode, Vince Horn is joined in conversation by long-time mentor and friend, David Loy, to explore his latest on, "EcoDharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis." Their discussion centers around how this EcoDharma work relates to our current exploration of Metadharma, which we describe as any approach to dharma practice that intentionally seeks to respond to the overlapping crises that humanity now faces.

Quotes:

"The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology." - E.O. Wilson

"I see social evolution as a continuation of biological evolution." - David Loy

"The Ecological Crisis is Earth’s way of telling us, 'Grow up or get out of the way.'" - David Loy 

Links:

👤 David Loy 

📖 EcoDharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis by David Loy

🎧 The Metadharma Series 

🎧 The Meta-Crisis Is a Human Development Crisis, Daniel Thorson & Zak Stein

📄 How to Be an Ecosattva by David Loy

📄 Differentiation of the Cultural Value Spheres by Ken Wilber

📖 Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

📄 Dualistic cosmology 

📖 The Structure of World History by Karatani Kojin

📄 Transparent Generosity 

📄 Capitalism 

📺 Jeremy Rifkin on the Fall of Capitalism and the Internet of Things 

📖 Syntheism: Creating God in the Internet Age by Alexander Bard & Jan Söderqvist

🔗 Open Source Ecology 

📺 Civilization starter kit by Marcin Jakubowski

🔗 Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center 

📖 Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken

🔗 Extinction Rebellion 

🔗 Extinction Rebellion Buddhists 

🔗 Sunrise Movement

🔗 350.org

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In this episode, Emily Horn speaks with Insight meditation teacher and co-founder of the newly established Meditation Coalition of Los Angeles, JoAnna Hardy. In their conversation, they explore the origins, values, & current activities of this new experiment in community.

Here at Buddhist Geeks we see the Meditation Coalition as part of larger emerging trend of decentralizing dharma communities. Check out our episode on the SF Dharma Collective to hear another example of a sangha that is seeking to decentralize traditional power structures.

Quotes:

“What is this Dharma?” - Emily Horn

“Everybody we come into contact with, if we’re awake enough and really paying attention, whether we agree with them or not, we’re going to learn something from them.” - JoAnna Hardy 

Links:

🔗 Meditation Coalition

🔗 JoAnna Hardy

🔗 Spirit Rock Meditation Center

📄 Ken McLeod

📄 Against the Stream Closes Doors as Investigation Finds Misconduct by Founder Noah Levine

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What practice(s) should I do? When should I switch-up my practice? How do I practice well, with so many choices available? Recorded during a week-long Buddhist Geeks Retreat, Vince Horn addresses these super-common questions by introducing Six Ways to Meditate. The purpose of this meditative meta-model is to give freelance meditators and DIY practitioners a way to orient to the vast diversity of techniques available in the Buddhist wisdom tradition.

Memorable Quotes:

"The untrained mind has a hard time gathering and collecting its full potential in one place.” - @VincentHorn

"If we can see what the elements of meditation are, then perhaps we can recombine those elements in new ways." - @VincentHorn 

Episode Links:

🔗 Buddhist Geeks Retreats

🔗 Responsive Meditation Guide

📄 Six Ways to Meditate

📄 Concentration Meditation

📄 The Feedback Loop of Concentration

📄 On Selecting a Meditation Object

📄 Kammaṭṭhāna

📄 Mindfulness Meditation

📄 Heartfulness Meditation

📄 The Brahmaviharas

📄 Inquiry Meditation

📄 Awareness Meditation

📄 Embodiment Meditation

📖 Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki

🎧 Trauma and the Unbound Body with Judith Blackstone

📄Malidoma Patrice Somé teaches the earth burial practice

📄Vipassanā

📖 The Paradox of Choice

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In this episode originally recorded in 2018 at the "Waking Up with Psychedelics" event in Los Angeles, Trudy Goodman spoke with one of the pioneers of Western spirituality and psychedelics, Ram Dass.  We're sharing this now to honor the recent passing of Baba Ram Dass, and appreciate his tremendous impact on popular, spiritual, & psychedelic culture.

We hope you enjoy this love bomb! ❤️💣

Episode links:

🎧 Existential Medicine, A recording of Part 1 of the same Waking Up with Psychedelics Event

📄 The New Wave of Psychedelics in Buddhist Practice by Matteo Pistono

🔗 RamDass.org

🔗 InsightLA

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In this latest addition to the Metadharma series, Ryan Oelke is joined by philosopher Ken Wilber to explore what a fourth turning of Buddhism looks like, what it includes, and why it’s needed. 

"The new Buddha is not going to be the Sangha, but the unification of the Buddha, Sangha, and Dharma in a single ongoing nondual Awareness and Awakening.” - Ken Wilber

In Part 1, Ken discusses the evolution of Buddhism through the three turnings, what each turning included and was missing, and what each subsequent turning provided. In a fourth turning, Ken speaks to the need of two main additions to the practice of Buddhism: growing up and cleaning up (waking up already being long present in the Buddhist tradition). 

In Part 2, Ken responds to how a fourth turning of Buddhism can more effectively respond to the meta-crises of the world and how practice can evolve as a response to the complexity and challenges of the world. 

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In this latest addition to the Metadharma series, Ryan Oelke is joined by philosopher Ken Wilber to explore what a fourth turning of Buddhism looks like, what it includes, and why it’s needed. 

"The new Buddha is not going to be the Sangha, but the unification of the Buddha, Sangha, and Dharma in a single ongoing nondual Awareness and Awakening.” - Ken Wilber

In Part 1, Ken discusses the evolution of Buddhism through the three turnings, what each turning included and was missing, and what each subsequent turning provided. In a fourth turning, Ken speaks to the need of two main additions to the practice of Buddhism: growing up and cleaning up (waking up already being long present in the Buddhist tradition). 

In Part 2, Ken responds to how a fourth turning of Buddhism can more effectively respond to the meta-crises of the world and how practice can evolve as a response to the complexity and challenges of the world. 

Episode Links

📖 The Religion of Tomorrow by Ken Wilber

🔗 The Three Turnings of Buddhism

🔗 Integral Life

🔗 The Ken Show

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In this latest addition to the Metadharma series, Vince Horn is joined by Michael W. Taft to explore the (meta)reasoning around Metadharma. Why do we need another Dharma? What does Metadharma respond to that Modern and Postmodern forms of Dharma haven’t? What do we need to jettison in order for a genuine Metadharma to emerge? And how does Metadharma relate to the very real social crises we face, including the ecological emergency, runaway capitalism, an over-dependence on rationality, growing racial resentments, and systems of oppression?

This is part 1 of a 2-part podcast series. Continue listening to the 2nd half of this discussion on Michael’s podcast Deconstructing Yourself: 🎧 Why Metadharma?, Part 2, with Vincent Horn

Episode Links:

🎧 Why Metadharma?, Part 2, with Vincent Horn

🔗 Deconstructing Yourself

📅 Metadharma Daylong Retreat in San Francisco on 8/24/19 w/ Michael Taft & Vincent Horn

🔗 San Francisco Dharma Collective

🔗 Sounds True

🎧 Kosmic Consciousness by Ken Wilber

🎧 Bonnitta Roy - Six Ways to Go Meta

📖 "The Science of Enlightenment” by Shinzen Young

📄 The Crumbling Buddhist Consensus: Overview by David Chapman

🔗 Buddhist modernism

📖 “American Dharma” by Ann Gleig

🎧 Sameness and Difference in American Dharma

📄 Mādhyamika

🔗 Death Sangha with Michael Taft

📺 What Are the Four Quadrants? by Ken Wilber

📖 “Syntheism: Creating God in the Internet Age” by Alexander Bard & Jan Soderqvist

📱 Headspace

📖 "The Mindful Geek: Mindfulness Meditation for Secular Skeptics” by Michael Taft

🔗 David Schmachtenberger

🐥 The Buddhist Geeks Farm

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"Climate change", as a term, no longer captures the real danger that climate scientists say that we as a species, along with our fellow creatures, face today. Already the impacts of climate change have turned into a genuine ecological crisis. A growing group of people are asking out loud, if the recent string of dire government-backed climate reports are too conservative to accurately describe the real dangers ahead of us. What if, in fact, we are on the fast track toward both an ecological & civilizational collapse, and it's already too late? What would it mean to practice dharma in "the spectre of collapse?"

Vince Horn is joined in this episode by a former team member of Buddhist Geeks, current monastic resident at the Monastic Academy, and host of the Emerge podcast, Daniel Thorson to discuss the dharma of collapse.

Memorable Quotes:

“It’s collapsing into certainty, in any case, that’s the real danger here, because then we foreclose on all kinds of possibilities and opportunities that we won’t see because we think we know what’s going on.” - Daniel Thorson

“If it’s true, everything needs to change. And if we can be uncertain about it then we can play with how things might change, in order so that it doesn’t have the worst impacts we fear it might.” - Daniel Thorson

“I wonder to what degree the spectre of collapse will be a kind of strange attractor that will pull people out of this deconstructive habit, into realizing that we need to make something that works, for the sake of our lives, for our children’s lives, for the sake of life on earth.” - Daniel Thorson

“The world is ending, but at least I can breathe through it.” - Vince Horn

“There are a lot of people and communities who are trying to retreat instead of retrieve.” - Vince Horn

Episodes Links:

🎙 Emerge: Making Sense of What’s Next

🔗 What is Emerging?

🔗 The Monastic Academy

📖 "Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha" by Daniel Ingram

📖 "American Dharma" by Ann Gleig

🔗 Dharmachanics

🔗 Metamodernism

🎧 Hanzi Freinacht - Towards a Metamodern Politics

📖 “The Listening Society” by Hanzi Freinacht

🎧 Dr. Jem Bendell - The Meaning and Joy of Inevitable Social Collapse

📄 Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy by Jem Bendell

🔗 IPCC Fifth Assessment Report

🔗 Transhumanism

🔗 David Loy

🎧 Max Borders - The Coming Social Singularity

🎧 Zak Stein - A Metaphysics of Love for a Time Between Worlds

📖 “Education in a Time Between Worlds” by Zachary Stein

🔗 Ken Wilber

📄 From Western Marxism to Western Buddhism by Slavoj Žižek

🎧 Buddhism Unbundled by Vince Horn

🔗 New religious movement

📖 “Metamodern Leadership” by James Surwillo

🔗 Meaningness: The fluid mode

🎧 Bonnitta Roy - A Source Code Analysis of Power

🔗 Roy Bhaskar 

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In this deep dive into the emerging territory of American Dharma, scholar-practitioner Ann Gleig joins with Buddhist Geeks host Vince Horn to explore a plurality of perspectives, some overlooked and marginalized, some debated for millennia. Over 2 hours of deep dialogical podcasting, Ann & Vince explore the larger territory of postmodernism in relation to American Dharma from multiple philosophical vantages, including the ‘post secular’, the ‘postcolonial’, and also in this conversation the ‘metamodern.’

Favorite Quotes:

"It can be challenging to mediate closeness with critique.” - Ann Gleig

“Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Evolving.” - David Loy

“In a way there’s no way around it, you kind of have to do the hard confrontational work of practice.” - Ann Gleig 

Episode Links:

📖 "American Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Modernity" by Ann Gleig

🎙 Metadharma: Set & Setting by Vince Horn

📄 Postmodernism

📄 Postsecularism

📄 Postcolonialism

📄 Metamodernism

📄 Buddhist Modernism

📄 Enlightenments Beyond the Enlightenment by David Chapman

📺 From Buddhist Hippies to Buddhist Geeks by Ann Gleig

📖 "Immunity to Change" by Robert Kegan

📄 Carl Jung

📄 Ken Wilber

📄 Lawrence Kohlberg

📄 Carol Gilligan

📄 Strategic Essentialism

📄 "The Fourth Turning" by Ken Wilber

📄 "The Way of Tenderness" by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel

🔗 Angel Kyodo Williams

🔗 Jeffrey J. Kripal

📄 Spiritual Bypassing: An Interview with John Welwood

📖 "Nonduality: In Buddhism and Beyond” by David Loy

📖 “Tripping with Allah” by Michael Muhammad Knight

🔗 Jorge Ferrer

🔗 White Privilege

🔗 White Awake

🔗 Inclusion 2.0

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In this episode Vince Horn kicks-off a new series on Buddhist Geeks on "Metadharma." Sharing his journey from working with integral philosopher Ken Wilber in the early aughts, to deconstructing grand metanarratives with inquiry meditation and developmental psychology, to returning back to a metaphilosophical orientation in recent years.

This series, on Metadharma, will explore the ways that the three jewels of the Buddhist contemplative tradition, the Buddha, Dharma, & Sangha, may be understood in light of the emergence of a Integral/Metamodern orientation.

Memorable Quotes:

"It's totally within the history of this Buddhist dharma tradition to transcend Buddhist dharma, to go meta on it." - Vince Horn

"Yet, we do we need to adapt, we do need to change, we can't just pull something out from the past and assume that we can make Buddhism great again." - Vince Horn

"What can happen if we make ourselves the middle way? What bridge might we become? And what does the world need from us right now?" - Vince Horn

Episode Links:

🔗 Ken Wilber

🔗 Robert Kegan

📖 "Immunity to Change" by Robert Kegan

📖 "The Postmodern Condition" by Jean-Francois Lyotard

📖 "American Dharma" by Ann Gleig

📄 The mindfulness crisis and the end of Consensus Buddhism by David Chapman

📖 "The Birth of Insight" by Erik Braun

📺 The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert

🔗 Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma

🔗 Tathāgatagarbha sūtras

🎧 The Dharma of Collapse with Daniel Thorson

🔗 Metamodernist Manifesto by Luke Turner

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In this episode, Vince Horn is joined by Kathryn "Kati" Devaney, one of the founders of the newly formed student-led sangha, SF Dharma Collective.  In addition to being practitioner, and community organizer, Kati is also a neuroscience researcher who has specialized on studying human visual attention.  In this discussion Kati describes the origin story of the SF Dharma Collective and talks about what makes it an entirely new kind of sangha-experiment.

A short note from Vince: After visiting the SF Dharma Collective in October 2018, where I met Kati, and offering a short teaching in their beautiful space in the Mission District, I knew it'd be fun to explore this new community-led model.  It feels like an emergent form of community, and I love how their groping with questions about how to self-organize, and create healthier forms of community.  I hope you enjoy learning more about this nascent project!

A note from the members of the collective: The SF Dharma Collective seeks to build a student-led sangha with you!  If you’re in San Francisco come by for a morning silent sit, an evening guided sit and Q&A (almost every night at 7:30pm) or for sutra study on Sunday evenings. We are an all-volunteer student collective, and you can volunteer with us - host a sit, propose an event, or sit in on a Monday meeting. If you’re not in SF, you can livestream Michael Taft’s Thursday night sits on his youtube channel, and follow along for more on our twitter, facebook and instagram pages. We seek to make the dharma accessible to everyone, regardless of background, financial status, or prior experience.  Come sit with us.  

Episode Links:

🔗 SF Dharma Collective

🔗Michael Taft

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In this episode Ryan Oelke speaks with Judith Blackstone, a teacher in the contemporary fields of nondual realization and spiritual, relational, and somatic psychotherapy, about her new book, “Trauma and the Unbound Body: The Healing Power of Fundamental Consciousness”.  They chat about the connection between embodiment, nondual realization, and healing, and how all three help deepen one other. 

Ryan & Judith also discuss what fundamental consciousness is, how to attune to it in, the difference between being aware of our bodies and living in and as our bodies, and what it’s like shift from a top-down experience of ourselves, to living directly within the space of our bodies.  They also explore how to heal and release patterns of constriction held in the body, so that we can allow ourselves to more deeply inhabit our physical experience, release the grip on ourselves, so that we have a more fluid experience of life.

Memorable Quotes

“The more we let go of the protective constrictions throughout our body, the more we open to and realize ourselves as the disentangled ground of fundamental consciousness.” - Judith Blackstone

“Interdependence does not eradicate individuation, individuation does not eradicate interdependence.” - Judith Blackstone

Episode Links

🔗RealizationProcess.org

📖Trauma and the Unbound Body

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I had the great delight of speaking with Oren Jay Sofer, just as he was fresh off a month-long silent retreat.  The timing couldn't be better, as the bulk of what we discussed relates to silent retreat culture, both its strengths and limitations.  

We ended up discussing communication and social practice quite a bit as well, including touching on some of the practices that he teaches in his new book, "Say What you Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication."  I've known Oren now for a several years, through my wife Emily, and my respect for him as a teacher and human being continues to grow.  I hope you enjoy our conversation on the limits of retreat culture.

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What is the future of consciousness hacking? Organic molecules, blinky machines, good old fashioned meditation, or some combination of them all? 

In this episode, recorded live in San Francisco on October 24th 2018, Michael Taft of Deconstructing Yourself, Vincent Horn of Buddhist Geeks, and host Mikey Siegel of Consciousness Hacking discuss the possibilities, the challenges, and the many ways forward in the transformation of human consciousness. 

Audience dialogue and questions took center stage in this event, so you'll hear plenty of back-and-forth between the presenters and the audience on psychedelics, technology, and the future of meditation.

Watch the full video version here: https://youtu.be/4oE6UxGmQog

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In this episode I'm joined in dialogue by David Gold to explore the path of Love. David shares the story of meeting his beloved, Juli Reeves, and how their meeting kicked off a process of being disrupted by Love. Listen in as we inquiry into Love, Life, Trust, Emergence, & Evolution.

This is part 2 of a two-part series.

Memorable Quotes:

“Whatever stands in the way of me loving her more, may it be removed.” - David Gold

“I will not have another God before Love. I don’t know what Gods will appear in Love, or reappear through Love, but I am not going to sacrifice Love.” - David Gold

“You can’t force yourself to trust life, but you can embrace life.” - David Gold

“The truth of life’s trustworthiness is revealing itself.” - David Gold

"If samsaric logic is 'if this than that' nirvanic logic is 'just this'." - Vincent Horn

“The practices arise from primordial wisdom rather than leading to it.” - Vincent Horn

"The vipassana master whose just sitting there noticing what is, is also loving what is." - Vincent Horn

Episode Links:

• 🔗 Love Disruptors (David & Juli's Site)

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During this episode I'm joined by an old friend and mentor, David Gold, to discuss, as he puts it, his "evolution from a non-teacher to a non-teacher." We talk about our shared history, going back to my time as college student at NC State, where he was a facilitator of the Self-Knowledge Symposium. He also shares his history with American mystic, Richard Rose, and with the fallen guru, Andrew Cohen. He shares the learnings that were borne out of working with those teachers, and the way that his path has opened into "a love unimaginable."

This is part 1 of a 2-part series.

Memorable Quotes:

“I decided I was going to stick around until I figured out how this man [Richard Rose] did what he did, and I was going to learn his tricks and go take it out into the world and make a lot of money with it, or whatever. Instead, I feel in love with the truth.” - David Gold

“The radical equality of unimaginable love is so intrinsic, so natural, and so liberating.” - David Gold

“When the truth and you and your deepest desires line up to be one thing that’s pretty much as close to heaven-on-earth as I could possibly imagine.” - David Gold

Episode Links:

• 🔗 Love Disruptors (David’s Teaching Site)
• 🔗 Richard Rose 
• 📖 “After the Absolute” by David Gold 
• 🔗 Andrew Cohen

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In this episode I'm joined by my old friend and colleague, Rohan Gunatillake. Rohan is the founder of Mindfulness Everywhere, a creative studio combining meditation, technology, & design. Mindfulness Everywhere is perhaps best known for it's popular meditation app buddhify, and for it's innovative-indie approach to developing digital mindfulness products. 

In this conversation we talk about the importance of making mindfulness accessible, about the discontinuous changes that have happened to mindfulness as it enters a capitalist-based system, two different ways to scale mindfulness, Rohan's Designing Mindfulness manifesto, buddhify's new social meditation feature Transmission, and "the missing middle" of mindfulness between the for- and non-profit sectors. 

Memorable Quotes:

“Meditation, mindfulness, Buddhism has always changed. It’s a history of innovation, from the Buddha’s awakening onward.” - Rohan Gunatillake

“Mindfulness & meditation has become a content business, as opposed to a wisdom business.” - Rohan Gunatillake

Episode Links:

• 🔗Mindfulness Everywhere 
• 📱buddhify
• 📖"Modern Mindfulness" by Rohan Gunatillake
• 🔗The Blogisattva Awards 
• 🔗Designing Mindfulness 
• 📱Headspace 
• 🔗Center for Humane Technology 
• 📰Why Transmission Matters 
• 🔗Become a Buddhify Member 
• 📰The First Alexa Board Game is Both Fun and Terrifying 
• 🔗Siempo: Use your phone, not the other way around
• 📰Google and the Rise of ‘Digital Well-Being’ 
• 📰The Second Generation of Mindfulness

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I discovered Christoper Vitale's writing after doing a google search on the "philosophy of networks." At the time I had recently started doing the Buddhist Geeks podcast again and had formulated a new tagline for the project: Dharma in the Age of the Network. I wanted to dive deeper into what networks are, not in a specific sense (of say a "computer network"), but in more general & philosophical terms. 

What I discovered in Chris' writing was a clear philosophy of networks, and a generalized way to under what is common among all networks. I was also somewhat shocked to find that he had studied Buddhist philosophy in Nepal and had several articles on his personal site about dharma & networks!  

In this episode, which was originally a prep call, we explore the very interesting relationship between Buddhist philosophy & networks, and discuss some of the topics related to his Networkologies project. Look for more from Christopher on Buddhist Geeks soon!

Memorable Quotes:

“All the binaries start coming down when you start thinking in terms of networks, because there’s nothing binary about a network, nothing dualist.” - Christopher Vitale

“Consciousness is just what happens when really complicated matter feels itself from the inside. That’s what a brain is.” - Christopher Vitale

Episode Links:

• 📖"Networkologies" : A Philosophy of Networks for a Hyperconnected Age
• 📰Buddhism Beyond Buddhism : Reimagining Tibetan Buddhism as Virtual Praxis for the Networked Age
• 🔗The Santa Fe Institute
• 🔗Pratītyasamutpāda ('interconnectedness')
• 🔗Madhyamaka
• 🔗Graph theory
• 🔗Panpsychism
• 🔗Sreedevi Bringi

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In this episode I was joined by my dharma friend Lama Karma. During our time together we explored his time in Peru, using the native plant medicine ayahuasca. He said he couldn't help but relate to his experience through the lens of his vajrayana training, and shares some of how he makes sense of the experiences he had while using ayahuasca ceremonially.

We also get into a heart-felt conversation about Lama Karma's teacher, Lama Norlha, who recently passed away and who at the very end of his life was embroiled in a controversial storm with his community regarding widespread allegations of sexual misconduct. Karma shares his experience of being at the center of that storm, torn by paradox.

memorable quotes:

"For me it was this simultaneity of insanity and openness.” - Lama Karma

episode links:

• Milarepa Retreat Center
• Shanghai Kagyu
• Ayahuasca 
• Lama Norlha Rinpoche, founding abbot of Kagyu Thubten Chöling, dies at age 79

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This episode comes from a live event on "Waking Up with Psychedelics" that occurred in Los Angeles, co-hosted by InsightLA. I was joined in this dialogue by Trudy Goodman, Spring Washam, & Dr. Charles Grob. Ram Dass joined us at the end of this dialogue, and his talk is on available for Buddhist Geeks Patrons as a bonus episode.

Memorable Quotes

"An untrained mind may go into panic, but a mind that's steeped in wisdom can start to say, 'Oh, this is the teaching right here.'" - Spring Washam

"It's a practice to be able to let the conventional self just dissolve into the not yet known." - Trudy Goodman

"Isn't it remarkable how we ingest plants in order to learn how to be human." - Ralph Metzner

Episode Links:

• Psilocybin: A Crash Course in Mindfulness with Dr. Roland Griffiths
• The Utter Perfection of Everything with Trudy Goodman
• Collective Wisdom Rising with Spring Washam
• "A Fierce Heart" by Spring Washam
• "Be Here Now" by Ram Dass
• Lotus & Vine Journeys
• East Bay Meditation Center
• Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)
• Ecstasy as a Remedy for PTSD? Your Probably Have Some Questions.
• "Island" by Aldous Huxley

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I’m joined in this raw & intimate conversation by meditation teacher & author Spring Washam, as we discuss the integration of Buddhist contemplative practice with the Peruvian plant medicine ayahuasca. We begin with Springs dharma journey and the way that silent practice no longer served her deeper healing journey, and how the ultimately brought her to the jungles of Peru. I share parallels on my path of working with psilocybin and healing ancestral trauma, and we go into how a deeper collective healing process underlies each of our personal journeys. Spring shares an interesting perspective on how these “medicines of the earth" can be understood as collective wisdom rising from nature itself at a crucial point in our time on this planet.

Memorable Quotes:

“For me insight and healing are one and the same.” - Spring Washam

“I think a big part of what we are unpacking collectively is our ancestral suffering, our community suffering, our collective karma.” - Spring Washam

“Yes, our lineages are alive! Your great-great-grandparents are alive in you.” - Spring Washam

Episode Links:

• 🔗 Spring Washam
• 📖 A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Courage, and Wisdom in Any Moment
• 🔗 East Bay Meditation Center
• 🔗 Lotus Vine Journeys

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I don’t want to over-hype this episode too much, but listening back over it today and preparing these notes, I was left feeling that this was perhaps the most intimate, raw, & profound conversation I’ve had throughout the Meditating on Psychedelics series so far.  It might have something to do with the fact that my guest is Trudy Goodman, who is also one of my teachers.  My wife Emily & I had the great honor of being authorized to teach by Trudy last year, at her center InsightLA, where we lived for a short time so that we could train more closely with her.  

I always describe Trudy as a living koan, because she demonstrates the teachings, lives the teachings, and in those moments of living them simply IS the teaching.  Seeing someone be the teachings of kindness, wisdom, & generosity, as you've probably experienced, is much more impactful than hearing people talk about them.  In Zen they call this, when it’s voiced through words, the difference between “live words” and “dead words.”  I hope you enjoy these live words from one of my most favorite people in the world.

Memorable Quotes:

“Why do I have to be stoned to have this experience?  This should be an experience that we can just have, we’re human beings, we have this capacity.” - Trudy Goodman

“I learned from all of those experiences, and yet the experiences themselves don’t exactly help you so much afterwards.  I stopped doing them because I didn’t like the feeling of being kicked out of the garden of eden over and over again.” - Trudy Goodman

“What is it that brings us into a more committed engagement with the mystery?” - Vincent Horn

“Meditating can help the mystical experience, or the opening, that people have on psychedelics become not just a state, an experience that is after all only a memory, but can help make those insights and awakenings present in our everyday life.” - Trudy Goodman

“We ask our students to be vulnerable.  And I don’t think we should ask our students to be doing things we aren’t doing.” - Trudy Goodman

Episode Links:

• Trudy Goodman
• InsightLA
• “In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts” by Gabor Mate
• Ram Dass
• Meditating on Mushrooms with Roland Griffiths
• "Psilocybin-occasioned mystical-type experience in combination with meditation and other spiritual practices produces enduring positive changes in psychological functioning and in trait measures of prosocial attitudes and behaviors”
• “Leopard Warrior: A Journey into the African Teachings of Ancestry, Instinct, and Dreams” by John Lockley
• The 4 Unmentionables: Sex. Money, Power & Race Series
• Father Greg Boyle
• Tristan Harris
• Center for Humane Technology
• Filter bubbles

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On this episode I had the great pleasure of speaking with Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and pioneer in the field of end-of-life care, Roshi Joan Halifax.  One of my previous guests, Raghu Markus, recommended I speak with her as part of the Meditating on Psychedelics series, and so that's where the conversation began.  

I think it's fair to say that by the end of our discussion it had expanded out quite a bit to include broader questions about the relationship between contemplation & action, and how the Mahayana emphasis on bodhicitta requires that we integrate our understanding with contemporary issues, of which psychedelics is just one.

Memorable Quotes

"I wouldn't say that I'm ambivalent with regards to hallucinogens, I'd say I'm discerning." - Roshi Joan Halifax

"I have a lot of respect for entheogens.  I have more respect for my mind." - Roshi Joan Halifax

"I want to live in a country that loves our children, more than they love our drugs." - Roshi Joan Halifax

Episode Links

• Upaya Institute and Zen Center
• Be Here Now Foundation
• Meditating on Mushrooms w/ Roland Griffiths
• Bodhicitta
• Stanislav Grof
• "The Human Encounter with Death" by Stanislav Grof & Joan Halifax
• William Richards on Erowid
• The Dependent Co-Arising of Psychedelics & Meditation by Vanja Palmers
• John Dunne on Language and Non-Duality

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In this episode I'm joined by one of my favorite productivity writers, Tiago Forte. Tiago is part of a new generation of productivity thinkers, whose exploring new ways of working in the digital age. I've found his writing both refreshing and insightful, and when I discovered that he also has a serious interest in meditation & spirituality I knew I'd have to invite him onto Buddhist Geeks.

The first part of our dialogue explores Tiago's background and work, and then we get into the relationship between network thinking, productivity paradigms, and different types of meditation.

Memorable Quotes

"You can't understand a paradigm from within it." - Tiago Forte

"What we can borrow from, network metaphors, telecommunications, the theory of constraints, mindfulness & meditation, to make the way the world is going into an opportunity instead of a threat?" - Tiago Forte

Episode Links

• Tiago Forte (https://www.fortelabs.co)
• "The Untethered Soul" by Michael Singer
• "Design Your Work" by Tiago Forte
• Building a Second Brain
• RibbonFarm : experiments in refactored perception
• The Throughput of Learning by Tiago Forte
• From Multitasking to Multiplexing by Tiago Forte
• The Rise of the Full-Stack Freelancer by Tiago Forte
• "Networkologies" by Christopher Vitale
• "Deep Work" by Cal Newport
• Metcalfe's law 

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In this episode we speak with meditation teacher & author Michael Taft about his experience of meditating on LSD. Michael describes himself as someone who has likely done more LSD than anyone you've ever known, while also being a hardcore meditator, a skilled teacher, and one of the more high-functioning & well integrated adults that you're likely to meet.

In addition to discussing the potential dangers and downsides of using LSD, Michael also shares his unique experience of the 3 characteristics of the LSD experience, Impermanence, Suchness, & Meta-Rationality, each of which mirror what can be found through Buddhist meditative training. 

Memorable Quotes:

"For this stuff to be powerful it has to be powerful." - Michael Taft

"It's like opening a door in your mind you did not know is there." - George Harrison

Episode Links:

🔗 Deconstructing Yourself (Michael's Website & Podcast)

📖 "The Mindful Geek" by Michael Taft

📖 "Cosmic Trigger" by Robert Anton Wilson

📖 "Dharma Bums" by Jack Kerouac

📖 "The Doors of Perception" by Aldous Huxley

🎙 Pattern and Nebulosity

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This week we speak with Albert Grabb, an LA-based radiologist & meditator, who was one of the 1st legal participants in a Johns Hopkins study of seasoned meditators using psilocybin (aka "magic mushrooms").

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In this episode we speak with author, podcaster, award-winning journalist, and dharmic psychonaut Erik Davis about the intersection of psychedelic practice & culture with dharmic practice & culture.

Episode Links:

- Become a Buddhist Geeks Patreon

- TechGnosis

- Expanding Mind Podcast

- "Zig, Zag, Zen"

- Dharma Protectors

- Erowid

- Cognitive liberty

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During the 2nd part of my conversation with Raghu Markus, director of the Love Serve Remember Foundation, we speak about the powerful fusion of bhakti (devotion) practice and more traditional Buddhist meditation practice.

Episode Links:

- Rick Doblin’s Psychedelic Studies

- Ram Dass

- Be Here Now Network

- SHARANAGATI: The True Meaning of Surrender from the Bhakti Yoga Tradition

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Raghu Markus lives in Asheville (my hometown) and is the executive director of the Love Serve Remember Foundation, the same organization that runs RamDass.org. Raghu traveled with Ram Dass (formerly Richard Alpert) in the 70s to India and studied with the Indian guru Neem Karoli Baba. There he also met Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, & Lama Surya Das, who all became lifelong friends.

During this first part of our conversation Raghu & I met up at a local tea shop and spoke about psychedelics. I hadn't expected to discuss this topic with Raghu originally, but it made sense given his connection with Ram Dass as well as his own journey through the psychedelic 60s & 70s, so that's where our conversation began.

I hope you enjoy the lively stories and reflections that Raghu shares about his time with Ram Dass, Neem Karoli Babi, his father, as he explored spiritual practice and psychedelics side-by-side as a young seeker.

Episode Links:

Ram Dass

Be Here Now Network

"Be Here Now"

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In this episode we speak with Dr. Douglas Osto, author of "Altered States: Buddhism and Psychedelic Spirituality in America".

Episode Links:

- Become a Buddhist Geeks Patreon

- Douglas Osto

- “Altered States: Buddhism and Psychedelic Spirituality in America”

- “Buddhist Theology: Critical Reflections by Contemporary Buddhist Scholars”

- “Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics”

- 'She didn't know what was real': Did 10-day meditation retreat trigger woman's suicide?

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The intention of this series is to gain a deeper understanding of the relative merits and dangers of the mixing Buddhist contemplative practice and ritualized psychedelic use.

Episode Links:

• "Meditating on Pyschedelics: What Camp Are You In?"

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Rev. angel Kyodo williams Sensei is a maverick spiritual teacher, master trainer, and founder of Center for Transformative Change. She is the author of "Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation". Sensei williams joins host Vincent Horn to continue the current series on ethics in a talk about race, love, and liberation. They address race and class in American capitalism, the construct of “whiteness” as a social form of ego structure, and how Buddhism provides the tools to uncover entrenched social structures and implicit bias.

Episode Links

• Rev. angel Kyodo williams Sensei
• TransformativeChange.org
• @zenchangeangel
• Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation

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Stephen Batchelor is a contemporary Buddhist teacher and writer, best known for his secular or agnostic approach to Buddhism. He is the author of "Buddhism Without Beliefs" and most recently has written "After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age". In this entry to the Buddhist Geeks series on ethics, Stephen joins host Vincent Horn to consider what it means to secularize Buddhist ethics. They discuss the process of removing early Buddhist ethics from its early Indian metaphysics, and between the ethical practice laid out by early Buddhism and more Western versions of ethics. They finish by discussing the metaphysical faith of secularism, in particular the role that rationalism & individualism play in this translation project.

Episode Links:

• StephenBatchelor.org http://www.stephenbatchelor.org/
• "After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age" by Stephen Batchelor http://www.amazon.com/After-Buddhism-Rethinking-Dharma-Secular/dp/030020518X
• "Syntheism: Creating God in the Internet Age" by Alexander Bard & Jan Söderqvist http://syntheism.org/wp-content/syntheism_book/Syntheism.html
• "Cyber Philosophy and the Void" http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2014/03/bg-315-cyber-philosophy-void/
• "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari https://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari-ebook/dp/B00ICN066A?ie=UTF8&me=&ref_=mt_kindle

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EMMA SEPPÄLÄ, Ph.D is Science Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. Emma joins host Vincent Horn to share the science behind compassion. She describes the current state of compassion research, and she and Vincent discuss the effects of unbundling mindfulness, compassion, and ethics in a capitalist society.

Episode Links

• Emma Seppala - http://www.emmaseppala.com
• The Happiness Track - http://www.emmaseppala.com/book/
• @emmaseppala - https://twitter.com/emmaseppala

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James Hughes is the Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and the author of "Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future". Continuing in our series On Ethics, James joins host Vincent Horn to discuss the ethical frameworks that underpin our social systems. From economics and social justice to conservative vs liberal values, to a newly emerging technoprogressivism, James and Vincent deconstruct and explore various ethical operating systems.

Episode Links:

James Hughes on Twitter - https://twitter.com/citizencyborg

"Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond To The Redesigned Human Of The Future" - https://www.amazon.com/Citizen-Cyborg-Democratic-Societies-Redesigned/dp/0813341981?ie=UTF8&qid=1165506115&sr=8-1&tag=instforethiin-20

Technoprogressive Declaration - http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/tpdec2014

BG 077: Transhumanism and the Authentic Self - http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2008/06/bg-077-transhumanism-and-the-authentic-self/ ]

Jonathan Haidt - http://people.stern.nyu.edu/jhaidt/

Alexander Bard and The Syntheist Movement - http://syntheism.org

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David Chapman is a writer, computer scientist, engineer and Buddhist practitioner. He blogs on several sites including the hypertext book Meaningness.com.

In part two of a conversation on ethics with David Chapman and Vincent Horn, the discussion continues to explore a series of blog articles that David wrote on the theme of “Buddhist ethics”. They consider the usefulness of tantric ethics, examine Western Buddhism in context of Robert Kegan’s 5-stage developmental psychology model, and they speculate on how Western Buddhism might move into a next stage (stage 5: reconstructive postmodernism) of development.

This is part two of a two part series. Listen to part one “Buddhist Ethics is a Fraud”. - http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2016/04/buddhist-ethics-fraud/

Episode Links:

• Meaningness.com
• David Chapman on Twitter
• “Buddhist ethics” is a fraud by David Chapman https://meaningness.wordpress.com/2015/09/23/buddhist-ethics-is-a-fraud/#summary
• Consensus Buddhism and Mindful Mayo
• Robert Kegan https://www.gse.harvard.edu/faculty/robert-kegan
• In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life. Harvard University Press, 1994. (Paperback, 1995).
• (German translation, Kindt Verlag, in press), (1994) by Robert Kegan http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674445888
• "The Further Reaches of Adult Development" - Robert Kegan https://youtu.be/BoasM4cCHBc

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David Chapman is a writer, computer scientist, engineer and Buddhist practitioner. He blogs on several sites including the hypertext book Meaningness.com.

Beginning a season of episodes on the theme of ethics, Vincent Horn welcomes David to explore a series of blog articles that David wrote on the theme of “Buddhist ethics.” Together they question some long held secular, leftish beliefs about Buddhist ethics, they explore the distinction between morality and ethics, and they examine how Buddhist ethics are practiced in the modern age.

This is part one of a two part series.

Memorable Quotes:

“Shakyamuni Buddha, 2,500 years ago, taught exactly the same ethics that was only rediscovered in California 30 years ago. He was a feminist, and sexually liberal, and environmentally conscious, and anti-racist. So great, we've got this religion that completely validates all the correct ethical positions and it's 2,500 years old.” - David Chapman

Episode Links:

• Meaningness.com - http://meaningness.com
• David Chapman on Twitter - https://twitter.com/Meaningness
• “Buddhist ethics” is a fraud by David Chapman - https://meaningness.wordpress.com/2015/09/23/buddhist-ethics-is-a-fraud/#summary
• “Buddhist Ethics: A Very Short Introduction” by Damien Keown - http://www.amazon.com/Buddhist-Ethics-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/019280457X
• Is “Buddhist ethics” Buddhist? by Amod Lele - http://loveofallwisdom.com/blog/2015/10/is-buddhist-ethics-buddhist/ ]
• Mindfulness is More Than Just Paying Attention (with Ron Purser) - http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2013/06/bg-288-mindfulness-is-more-than-just-paying-attention/
• “Ethics” is advertising by David Chapman - https://meaningness.wordpress.com/2015/10/05/buddhist-ethics-is-advertising
• Consensus Buddhism and Mindful Mayo - https://art19.com/shows/buddhist-geeks/episodes/31a00eb8-ecc4-4ccc-af2b-81bf72254f72

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Roland Griffiths is the lead investigator of the Psilocybin Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins and one of the United States’ leading psychopharmacologists. In the conclusion to his conversation with host Vincent Horn, Roland provides more details on the Hopkins Meditation Study, Vincent shares his personal story of psychedelic experimentation, and they discuss the risks and benefits of mixing meditation practice with the psilocybin experience. This is part two of a two part series. Listen to part one "Meditating on Mushrooms".

Episode Links:

- Hopkins Meditation Study

- "The Trip Treatment"

- Roland R. Griffiths, Ph.D.

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Roland Griffiths is the lead investigator of the Psilocybin Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins and one of the United States’ leading psychopharmacologists. In this episode Roland describes his research into the medicinal uses of psychedelics. He explains his history in the field, his current research around psychedelics and meditation, and he extends an invitation to the Buddhist Geeks audience to consider becoming a part of a meditation on psilocybin study at John Hopkins.

This is part one of a two part series. Listen to part two "Psilocybin: A Crash Course in Mindfulness".

Episode Links:

- Hopkins Meditation Study

- "The Trip Treatment"

- Roland R. Griffiths, Ph.D.

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Emily Horn and Vincent Horn are meditation teachers and partners in life and the Buddhist Geeks. In the final part of this reflective series, they explain events leading up to the current Buddhist Geeks Dojo project as well describe the forthcoming Fall Training Period (“FTP”) inside the Dojo. The FTP will be a chance to spend the entire month of October either establishing a regular practice, going deeper in your current one, or even practicing like your hair is on fire. The program details are here [http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/dojo/ftp/] and we’d love for any of you to join us during this time to deepen your practice.

This is part two of a two part series. Listen to part one "When Rebels Mature". https://soundcloud.com/buddhistgeeks/bg-369-when-rebels-mature

Episode Links (pt 2): The Buddhist Geeks Dojo [ http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/dojo/ ] The Fall Training Period [ http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/dojo/ftp/ ] The Buddhist Geeks Community [http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2013/07/the-buddhist-geeks-community/] Dojo Facilitators [ http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/dojo/facilitators/ ]

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Michael Heim is an American author, educator, and Tai Chi instructor known as a philosopher of cyberspace and virtuality. In the conclusion to their conversation, host Vincent Horn and Michael discuss integrating the virtual with the physical. From the thought-experiment of performing a virtual Japanese Tea Ceremony to imagining a virtual Tai Chi experience, they explore how to use the new tools of virtuality to energize, heal, and make us whole.

This is part two of a two part series. Listen to part one: Virtual Reality IRL.

Episode Links:

• Michael R. Heim
• Virtual Reality and the Tea Ceremony [pdf]

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Michael Heim is an American author, educator, and Tai Chi instructor known as a philosopher of cyberspace and virtuality. In this conversation with host Vincent Horn, Michael shares his insights on the intersection of philosophy and the world of Virtual Reality. He gives a brief history of commercial VR, provides updates on the third wave of VR development, and discusses the challenges we will face as physical creatures living in virtual worlds.

This is part one of a two part series. Listen to part two: Virtual Reality and the Tea Ceremony.

Episode Links:

• Michael R. Heim

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Daniel Ingram is a Buddhist teacher and the author of Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha. In this keynote from the 2014 Buddhist Geeks Conference, Daniel speaks on the visual, auditory, physical, and psychological phenomena referred to as powers, or siddhis. He provides examples of power manifestation, why and how powers appear, and the effects of powers on the individual and community levels.

Episode Links:

• Daniel Ingram ( http://integrateddaniel.info )
• Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book ( http://amzn.to/1MUQyEW )

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Vincent Horn is a mind hacker & buddhist geek. In this keynote from the 2014 Buddhist Geeks Conference Vincent explores the unbundling of components like meditation and mindfulness from contemporary Buddhism. He then explores the process of re-bundling and what the future of both Buddhist and Buddhist-inspired models may look like as new combinations of knowledge come together in novel, and sometimes timeless, ways.

Episode Links:

🔗 www.VincentHorn.com

🖼 Buddhism Unbundled talk slides

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Katherine MacLean, PhD. is an academically trained research scientist and meditation practitioner with a long-standing interest in the brain, consciousness and the science of well-being. As a postdoctoral research fellow and faculty member at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, she worked on the largest study to date combining psychedelics and meditation. Her research on psilocybin and personality change suggests that psychedelic medicines may play an important role in enhancing mental health and promoting openness and creativity throughout the lifespan.

In this talk from the 2014 Buddhist Geeks Conference, Katherine presents her experience of studying psychedelics. She shares personal travel stories of mystical experiences in the Himalayas, research results from facilities around the world, and potential therapies for the injured and dying using psilocybin, MDMA, and other psychedelics. A proponent of psychedelic use for therapy and mental health, Katherine encourages the audience to rethink whatever preconceived ideas they might have about the skillful use of psychedelics.

Episode Links:

• Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
• The Secular Buddhist Episode 84: Psilocybin and Openness
• C-Realm Episode 411: The Strange, Fuzzy, Fat Brick of Everything

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Theo Horesh is a social entrepreneur, philosopher, and author of two books of global social psychology. He has been meditating for over 25 years and has spent the last 10 intensively studying the world. He has recently begun reporting on the collective traumas in global trouble spots for the Journal of Conflict Resolution and Elephant Journal.

In this talk from the 2014 Buddhist Geeks Conference, Theo discusses the themes behind his book Convergence: The Globalization of Mind. While describing various challenges and opportunities that come with globalization, he shares a vision of greater mindfulness needed to help navigate the sophisticated global civilization that is emerging in modern times.

Episode Links:

• Convergence: The Globalization of Mind

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Jason Lange is a Los Angeles based writer and director exploring the intersections of filmmaking, technology, and transformation. In this episode Jason joins host Vincent Horn to discuss his recent article “The Coming Age of Technodelics” which explores technologies that may enable some of the same experiences that meditation and psychedelics have traditionally provided. By comparing and contrasting psychedelics and technodelics, the conversation examines the possible uses and usefulness of mind altering technologies such as the cutting edge Virtual Reality headset Oculus Rift.

Episode Links:

• The Coming Age of Technodelics
• Just Say Know: A Cyberdelic History of the Future
• The Inside Story of Oculus Rift and How Virtual Reality Became Reality

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Ann Gleig is an Assistant Professor of Religious and Cultural Studies at the University of Central Florida. She is currently working on projects on the North American revisioning of Asian liberation traditions, and Buddhism in Postmodernity. In this episode taken from the 2013 Buddhist Geeks Conference, Ann presents the findings of her academic article on Buddhist Geeks, which was published in the Journal of Global Buddhism. She offers an engaging analysis of the interactions between Buddhism, Buddhist Geeks, and technology, and she shares her insights on the historical and cultural significance of the Buddhist Geeks community.

Episode Links:

📃 From Buddhist Hippies to Buddhist Geeks: The Emergence of Buddhist Postmodernism?

🔗 Ann Gleig, Ph.D.

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Willoughby Britton and Daniel Ingram continue their conversation with hosts Emily Horn and Kelly Sosan Bearer to discuss helping people through the experience of the contemplative Dark Night.

To begin the second part of their discussion, Daniel describes the characteristics of Dark Night experience he has seen in the Dharma Overground community and the cycles many people experience. Emily asks whether compassion practice is a common tool to use when in the Dark Night stage. Willoughby and Daniel each describe observations of the usefulness of metta practice and attempt to answer the question: can a sniper have compassion?

Finally, the group explores the topic in context of the TIME story “Aaron Alexis and the Dark Side of Meditation”. This is part two of a two part series. Listen to part one: Varieties of Contemplative Experience Episode

Episode Links:

• TIME: Aaron Alexis and the Dark Side of Meditation ( healthland.time.com/2013/09/17/aaro…-of-meditation/ )
• Daniel Ingram ( integrateddaniel.info )
• The Dharma Overground ( www.dharmaoverground.org )
• Willoughby Britton & Cheetah House ( www.cheetahhouse.org )
• The Dark Side of Dharma ( bit.ly/1IBv56f )
• The Dark Night Project ( bit.ly/1gc7P2j )

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In this episode, taken from the Buddhist Geeks Conference 2012, Daniel Ingram talks about the ways that contemplatives could learn from the Naturalists. The Naturalists excelled in meticulous exploration, descriptive science, and classification. Their example can serve as the foundation for the next step in contemplative advancement, where the vast spectrum of inner experience, could be described and cataloged in an entirely new way.

Episode Links:

• Daniel Ingram ( http://www.integrateddaniel.info )
• Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha ( http://amzn.to/Ri7No5 )

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Kelly Sosan Bearer speaks with Ed Halliwell, journalist, teacher, and author, about his new book The Mindful Manifesto and its themes of mindfulness, Buddhism, and Science. Ed describes his personal experience with stress and depression and his journey to Buddhism and mindfulness practice as a way to get healthy. He defines “mindfulness” and then leads the Geeks through a ”3 step breathing space practice” meant to reduce stress.

Episode Links:

The Mindful Manifesto: How Doing Less and Noticing More Can Help Us Thrive in a Stressed-Out World ( http://amzn.to/1gc7gWq )

The Guardian ( http://www.guardiannews.com )

Integral Chicks ( http://www.integralchicks.com )

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In this episode Rohan Gunatillake speaks with Buddhist teacher Rob Burbea on the topic of Climate Change. Rob wonders why the Western Buddhist community is largely silent on the topic, and over the course of the discussion Rohan and Rob explore several questions, including: How does dharma practice relate to the topic of Climate Change? What is the consequence of Buddhists not addressing this issue? What example should Buddhist teachers and leaders show in relation to climate change?

Episode Links:

• The Meditator as Revolutionary
• Dharma and Climate Change
• Gaia House
• www.21awake.com

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David Chapman–writer and computer scientist–joins us again to finish our conversation about “consensus Buddhism” and the alternatives that he sees to the consensus. David speaks about some of the innovations that occurred in the last few decades within the world of Buddhist tantra, including such teachers as Chogyam Trunpa Rinpoche, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, and Reggie Ray. He also speaks about the challenges facing modern Buddhism, including fragmentation and atomization, and how these challenges are leading to a new approach, that might best be described as post-modern.

This is part 2 of a two-part series. Listen to part 1, Consensus Buddhism and Mindful Mayo.

Episode Links:

• Meaningness ( http://meaningness.wordpress.com )
• The Making of Buddhist Modernism ( http://amzn.to/tpoDE9 )
• Buddhism for Vampires ( http://buddhism-for-vampires.com )

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David Chapman is a writer, computer scientist, engineer and Buddhist practitioner. He shares in this episode a description of what he calls consensus Buddhism. Chapman claims that up until recently this consensus group has crowded out the mindshare of alternative approaches to Buddhism, through focusing on universalizing and making absolute several principles, which are good in themselves, but become problematic when absolutized. Included among these principles are:

1) inclusivity

2) individualism

3) egalitarianism

4) niceness

5) mindfulness

This is part 1 of a two-part series. Listen to part 2, Innovating New Forms of Buddhist Tantra.

Episode Links:

• Meaningness ( http://meaningness.wordpress.com )
• Boomeritis Buddhism ( http://bit.ly/17mRK )
• “Nice” Buddhism ( http://meaningness.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/nice-buddhism/ )
• One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism ( http://amzn.to/vCeIu0 )

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We’re joined again this week by organizational expert, and founder of HolacracyOne, Brian Robertson. Brian begins by describing the pit-falls of both strict hierarchy and consensus based organizational structures, pointing out that in both cases the systems are fused with the people. He contrasts that with the Holacracy structure, which employs several methods designed such that the value of both top-down and bottom-up wisdom can be incorporated into an organization.

We then discuss the challenges of implementing a system like Holacracy, including the difficult “ego shock” that it can have on people who are used to being heroic leaders. We then speak about the notion of “organizational enlightenment”, which Brian speaks of as “the organization waking up to its own purpose in the world”.

This is part 2 of a two-part series. Listen to part 1, Liberating the Soul of Organization.

Episode Links:

🔗 HolacracyOne

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We’re joined this week by Brian Robertson, founder of HolacracyOne, a company whose aim is to liberate the soul of organization. We discuss with Brian the main principles and practices behind Holacracy—a system that Brian helped develop as a new operating system on which businesses can run. He distinguishes between what he calls “predict-and-control” management practices and “sense-and-respond” processes, which are much more like the dynamic steering of a bicycle.

We also look at the parallels between the practice of Holacracy and the practice of meditation. Brian’s description of Holacracy as a practice which encourages people to be ruthlessly present with current tensions and to not identify with the roles that they fill are two striking examples of meditative principles applied to business. We conclude our discussion by exploring what he calls “the tyranny of consensus”, seeing that even with a group of highly conscious individuals we may not have the collective skills to really give life to the organizations we’re a part of.

This is part 1 of a two-part series. Listen to part 2, Organizational Enlightenment.

Episode Links:

🔗 HolacracyOne

📄 Differentiating Role and Soul

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