Buddhist Geeks

In “The Modern Hindrance of Unworthiness,” Emily West Horn explores unworthiness as a contemporary inner hindrance, examining how mindfulness, compassion, and heartfulness allow this pattern to be recognized, included, and ultimately loosened without bypassing lived experience. 💎 The Jhāna Community This teaching was given in a Heartful Jhāna group, in The Jhāna Community . Join Emily for a new 1...

Leigh Brasington explains how the mind progresses through the four jhānas—from initial access concentration and the energetic, pleasure-filled first jhāna to the progressively quieter states of happiness, contentment, and equanimity—emphasizing their practical characteristics, traditional similes, and their role in supporting insight practice. 💎 The Jhāna Community This recording took place in Th...

🤖 AI Transparency: The transcript below was lightly edited, for both spelling & grammar errors, using ChatGPT. In this talk jhāna teacher Leigh Brasington draws on teachings from his teacher Ayya Khema , offering a clear, practice-based guide to entering the first jhāna, a meditative state of joyful concentration described in early Buddhist texts. A Jhāna Retreat If this sounds like your jam, con...

Vince Fakhoury Horn reflects on his experiences within the Insight meditation tradition, as an authorized teacher in the lineage, arguing that its senior leaders have remained complicit, through their silence, on the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. 💬 Transcript Vince : Today I want to speak to you as an authorized representative of the Insight meditation tradition. I was authorized to teach—emp...

In this Buddhist Geeks episode, Vince Fakhoury Horn and Robert Wright explore the intersection of Buddhism, ethics, and geopolitics as they reflect on Palestine, Jewish-Buddhist responses, moral responsibility, and the role of mindfulness amid global violence. Get full access to Buddhist Geeks at www.buddhistgeeks.org/subscribe

Vince Fakhoury Horn : The Flavors of Jhāna—I can’t remember where I first heard this term. I think it was from you or from Kenneth [Folk]. Brian Newman : Maybe we should start there. You came to me and said, “What should we call the retreat?” And I said, “Hey, you’re the one who wanted to do it in Portugal—what should we call it?” You threw it back at me, and I said, “Can we call it the name of my...

Vince Fakhoury Horn : I was thinking about where to start with the 9th Jhāna, and I think the first thing to say is that the 9th Jhāna is not a state. So why in the world are we within a community of practice called The Jhāna Community , which is explicitly aimed at developing and cultivating certain states of mind, or states of consciousness, why would we be focusing on something which is not a s...

This episode of Buddhist Geeks features a candid and heartfelt conversation between Vince Fakhoury Horn and Tasshin Fogleman about Palestine, the TPOT subculture, and what it means to embody true Bodhisattvahood. They explore the limitations of online discourse, especially around contentious issues, and reflect on the importance of good-faith dialogue, friendship, and spiritual integrity in times...

What is Access Concentration? This is the question I want to bring forward in this talk. I recorded something on this topic many years ago—too many, honestly, to comfortably admit. At the time, I was working on a project that was essentially a secular meditation app. That’s basically been the through-line of my career: building and teaching through these kinds of projects. The app was called Medit...

By Vince Fakhoury Horn Today, in The Jhāna Community , I want to center our exploration around the completion phase—also known as enlightenment. What is the relationship between enlightenment and jhāna? That’s what we’ll explore. The Goal of Vipassana Jhāna In Vipassana jhāna practice, the goal is insight—clearly seeing the way things are. This clear seeing leads to awakening, within the Buddhist...

Overview: In this episode, Vince Horn and Daniel Thorson explore the evolving landscape of Western Buddhism, unpacking the tensions between Consensus Buddhism and Pragmatic Dharma, while reflecting on ethics, teacherly authority, and the possibilities for a more integrated future. Vince Horn: I'm here with Daniel Thorson , hanging out in your office-slash-bedroom. You've been in the Asheville area...

Emily Horn is joined by renowned meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg to share reflections on her beloved teacher, Dipa Ma , a Bangladeshi meditation master, who was known for her extraordinary concentration, profound insight, and unwavering kindness. Sharon recounts her personal experiences with Dipa Ma, highlighting her maternal yet fierce presence, her ability to see deep potential in her student...

In this episode of Our Beloved Teachers , dharma teacher Leigh Brasington reflects on his transformative experiences studying with Ven. Ayya Khema, one of his most influential teachers. Leigh shares how Ayya Khema's clarity, discipline, and groundbreaking teachings on meditation, including the jhānas, shaped his practice and teaching path. The conversation also delves into Ayya Khema's extraordina...

Vince Fakhoury Horn is joined again by dharma teacher Trudy Goodman , founder of InsightLA , to share reflections on her beloved teacher, Kōbun Chino Otogawa . Kobun (February 1, 1938 – July 26, 2002), also known as Chino Otogawa Roshi, was a Japanese Zen priest who brought his unique and deeply compassionate teachings to America. Renowned for his unconventional approach, he emphasized practicing...

In this episode of Buddhist Geeks, Brian Newman discusses his journey into deep jhāna meditation practice. He explores his training in the rigorous Pa-auk tradition, the challenges and breakthroughs he experienced, and the balance between traditional and more modern approaches to jhāna, ultimately advocating for a playful, less rigid approach to accessing these deep states of concentration. Episod...

In the episode on " Technological Metamodernism ," Vince Fakhoury Horn and Stephen Reid discuss the intersection of technology, metamodernism, and the potential middle paths that navigate between techno-optimism or e/acc and eco-dystopianism or doomerism. They explore how emerging technologies can be aligned with deeper values, such as sovereignty, relationality, and wholeness, while also addressi...

In this episode of Buddhist Geeks, Vince Fakhoury Horn shares his experience of working with the meditation startup Jhourney , and raises concerns about their insufficient training and appropriation of Buddhist meditation practices, advocating for a more responsible and deeply informed approach to secularizing Jhāna meditation. Episode Links : 📝 The Second Generation of Mindfulness by Vince F. Ho...

In this episode Ryan Oelke chats with Judith Blackstone , contemporary spiritual teacher, psychotherapist, and founder of The Realization Process, and author of her latest book, The Fullness of the Ground: A Guide to Embodied Awakening .  They discuss a variety of aspects of what it means to embody nonduality, including different views on nonduality, how to practice and live a path of embodied non...

In this episode, recorded during a Buddhist Geeks Retreat, Vince Fakhoury Horn teachings on several ways to meditate, including Concentration, Mindfulness, Heartfulness, Inquiry, Awareness, Embodiment, and Imaginal forms of practice. Each approach to meditation leads to different results, even as the ultimate goal remains the same, which is to realize the essential nature of mind, and be able to e...

In this Our Beloved Teachers episode Emily Horn speaks with Spring Washam about her relationship with Harriet Tubman, and the teachings she has received from her. Spring speaks about the importance of faith and courage in navigating challenging times and the connection to the unseen world, while emphasizing that Harriet Tubman is not just an ancestor for African Americans, but for everyone. She en...

In her talk titled "Homemaking Dharma," Emily Horn discusses the process of creating a spiritual home, which involves working with heartbreak, grief, and our shadow aspects. She emphasizes the importance of understanding our spiritual story and incorporating elements of our ethnic and cultural backgrounds into our practice. This journey towards wholeness requires the practice of mindfulness and lo...

This talk, titled "Contemplating the Anomalous" was given by Vince Fakhoury Horn on a Buddhist Geeks retreat in July, 2023. It explores the stages of a paradigm shift in understanding, going from ignoring the anomalous, to encountering anomalies and experiencing resistance, to exploration, and finally toward genuine transformation. Using examples from both Science and Meditation Vince attempts to...

Meditatewith.ai is a web app prototype, aimed at demonstrating the possibility of learning Multiplayer Meditation–an out-loud, social, interactive, & trauma-informed protocol–with an AI partner first. The purpose of the company behind this prototype, Interbeing Inc, is to improve the mental health and well-being of all humans using interpersonal meditation practices. In this episode, recorded...

The Vimalakīrti Sūtra is a Mahayana Buddhist text from the 2nd century CE that explores the nature of enlightenment and the teachings of the Buddha. In this contemporary commentary on the Vimalakīrti Sūtra, Pragmatic Dharma teacher Kenneth Folk shares his personal understanding of what he refers to as “a magical spell.” Episode Links : Watch the Video Version of this Talk on Youtube Kenneth Folk D...

Vince Fakhoury Horn is joined by long-time teacher, Kenneth Folk, to share about his beloved teacher, Bill Hamilton, who American dharma teacher Shinzen Young referred to as "an unsung hero of Western Mindfulness." Bill was an enigmatic dharma teacher who practiced in the Insight-Theravada tradition. He was the founder of the Dharma Seed library, did more than 7 years of silent retreat practice, a...