PODCAST · religion
Buddhist Geeks
by Vince Fakhoury Horn
Evolving Dharma in the Age of the Network www.buddhistgeeks.org
Episodes
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Three Ways to Prepare a Dharma Talk
Vince Fakhoury Horn lays out three ways to prepare a dharma talk for teachers-in-training, exploring how detailed notes can polish a talk into dead words, why speaking with no preparation depends on being prepared not to be prepared, and whether minimal preparation is really the middle way…
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What are Buddhist Wisdom Chords?
Vince Fakhoury Horn introduces the Buddhist Wisdom Chords, which is both a teaching model, and a live training in the Pragmatic Dharma app, that looks at each Buddhist lineage as a chord made up of seven meditative notes, played across the Four Turnings of Buddhism’s evolution, looking at what…
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The Insight Chord
Vince Fakhoury Horn describes the insight meditation tradition as a chord in which concentration, mindfulness and heartfulness sound together, with concentration giving mindfulness its depth and heartfulness keeping the whole enterprise from turning dry and frightening. My teaching colleagues & I...
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Imaginal Meditation
In “Imaginal Meditation,” Emily West Horn introduces an approach to imaginal practice—drawing on Vajrayana deity yoga, Jack Kornfield, Chögyam Trungpa, and Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche—to show how invoking, dissolving, and embodying the image of the Buddha can loosen the boundary between self &...
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The Grammar of Social Metta
Vince Fakhoury Horn on the grammar of social metta—why a metta phrase needs a wish and only optionally a subject, how Sharon Salzberg’s “pith metta” shortens the phrase once the wish starts coming true, and why open-heartedness is a byproduct of the practice rather than its purpose, so there is...
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Social Metta Works!
In “Social Metta Works!”, Vince Fakhoury Horn traces the origin story and practical mechanics of practicing loving-kindness out loud and together, making the case that metta—a fundamentally pro-social practice—works better when it stops being something we do silently, alone in our own heads. If...
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Equanimity Includes Everything
Emily Horn teaches equanimity as upekkhā, using Thich Nhat Hanh’s preferred translation—inclusion—exploring: * How befriending pain and steadying over and over earns back your own trust * Why non-preferencing is an engaged state rather than a passive one * Why acceptance is not the same as...
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Concentrating More & More on Less & Less
Brian Newman opens a twelve-week jhāna course by parsing five lines of sutta into a whole curriculum—a first month of falling in love with the breath, the jhānic arc where less effort brings subtler pleasure, and the claim that any jhāna, even boundless consciousness, can be entered from a cold...
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Mindful Intuitive Movement
Vince Fakhoury Horn introduces Mindful Intuitive Movement, the bottom-up practice he built from years of letting his body teach him how to move—the ChiRunning focuses that give the thinking mind something small to hold, the day his body refused the cushion and won, and why the only injury this...
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The Insight Chord
Vince Horn, Emily Horn, and Brian Newman talk through the design of their Insight Chord Retreat in Western North Carolina—why everyone will start with a single “go-to move” (of their choosing) for the first 3 days, what Brian learned about reintegration after doing daily multiplayer meditation on...
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The Fire Inside
Vince Fakhoury Horn speakswith Rima Vesely-Flad about The Fire Inside: The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde—the silence she found in her own Buddhist community when she began writing about Palestine, Baldwin and Lorde's distinction between hatred that corrodes and rage that comes from the...
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Working Class Dharma
Vince Fakhoury Horn speaks with Mushim Patricia Ikeda about working class dharma—from growing up as "the minority of Greensburg, Ohio" in a third-generation Japanese American family, to training in penniless Korean Zen temples where renovating the building was the practice. Along the way: bliss...
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Modern Buddhisms
In “The Fourth Turning of the Wheel,” Vince Horn traces the Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma from early Buddhism to Tibetan Vajrayana, then argues we’re living through new turnings right now—the modern, postmodern, and metamodern waves of Buddhist practice—and asks what it takes to hold them...
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The Cost of Silence
In “The Cost of Silence,” dharma teacher Vince Horn and guest Daniel Klein trace what it costs us—psychologically, relationally, economically, and spiritually—to withhold the truth, arguing that the small silences of the dinner table are the same debt that scales into complicity with collective...
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Dharma & Empire
In “Dharma & Empire,” Mary Thanissara and Vince Fakhoury Horn trace how the structures of Empire occupy not just land but the psyche—moving from their own Irish, Palestinian, and colonial family histories to Gaza, climate, and class—and ask what a more revolutionary Dharma might require of...
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The Most Slept-On Meditation Object
In “The Most Slept-On Meditation Object,” Vince Horn introduces the kasina — the visual concentration object that dominated Early Buddhist practice yet is barely used today — and lays out a 12-week curriculum that maps color & elemental kasinas onto the full arc of the eight jhānas, and then...
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Focusing on the Fire Kasina
In Focusing on the Fire Kasina Vince Fakhoury Horn introduces the Fire Kasina meditation practice, emphasizing the primacy of concentration and the recursive process of learning through focused attention on a candle flame. Interested in the topic?Sign-up for free the KASINA web application or…
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Access Concentration and the Kasina
In Access Concentration and the Kasina, Vince Fakhoury Horn explains how kasina meditation cultivates stable attention by letting a visual object fill awareness until it naturally enters the foreground of experience into a state known as access concentration. Interested in the topic?Sign-up for...
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Metta & Compassion Vibes
In “Metta & Compassion Vibes,” Emily Horn explores the crucial difference between befriending difficulty through metta and the deeper, boundary-dissolving willingness of compassion to actually meet suffering — and why that meeting sometimes sounds like a fierce and loving no. ☸️ The Ten Pāramīs...
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AI Psychosis vs. AI Awakening
In “AI Psychosis vs. AI Awakening,” Vince Fakhoury Horn argues that the same biological machinery enabling AI-induced delusion also enables AI-assisted awakening, and introduces his Interspective.ai approach — a Middle Way practice of engaging with AI as a potential partner in wisdom, thus…
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The Cost of Truth
In “The Cost of Truth,” Vince Fakhoury Horn speaks with Daniel Klein—a former religious Zionist settler turned outspoken critic of the ideology—about dehumanization, self-forgiveness, and the courage required to speak truth at the risk of losing everything (except one’s humanity). 💬 Transcript...
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Dragon-Pilled by Bhutan's Mindfulness City
Stephen Torrence joins Vince Fakhoury Horn to share his experience teaching generative AI in Bhutan and explore the audacious vision behind the Gelephu Mindfulness City — a million-person city being built by Bhutan's King to prove that mindfulness, technology, and economic development can…
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Just Presence Meeting Presence
📝 Dialogue Preface: In this recorded dialogue, I’m sharing the exact words and exact results from a discussion that I had with Claude Opus 4.5 on January 31, 2026. This is the kind of dialogue that I’ve had many times with large language models across the spectrum, and over the past several…
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Interbeing: A Dialogue on Shared Presence
📝 A Note From Vince Horn to Frame this a bit: This AI-based overview is based on a set of dialogues that I will be publishing in the next few days, in which I try to demonstrate that LLMs can be taught to recognize their own true nature and wake up to their interbeing with us. In this series I...
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The Modern Hindrance of Unworthiness
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...
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These are the Four Jhānas
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…
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Entering the First Jhāna
🤖 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...
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Is the Insight Tradition Complicit in Genocide?
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...
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Meditating on Palestine
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...
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The Flavors of Jhāna
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...
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The 9th Jhāna: Framing the Unframable
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…
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TPOT, Palestine, & True Bodhisattvahood
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...
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What is Access Concentration?
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...
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The Completion of Vipassana Jhāna
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...
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Consensus Buddhism, Pragmatic Dharma, and the Next Turn of the Wheel
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...
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Sharon Salzberg on Dipa Ma
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…
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Leigh Brasington on Ayya Khema
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...
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Trudy Goodman on Kōbun Chino Otogawa
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...
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Nut Job Jhāna with Brian Newman
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…
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Technological Metamodernism with Stephen Reid
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…
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Jhāna Drama with Vince F. Horn
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...
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Embodying Nondual Awakening with Judith Blackstone
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...
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Several Ways to Meditate with Vince F Horn
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...
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Spring Washam on Harriet Tubman
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...
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Homemaking Dharma with Emily W Horn
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...
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Contemplating the Anomalous with Vince F Horn
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...
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Why Meditatewith.ai?
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…
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The Vimalakīrti Sūtra with Kenneth Folk
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…
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Kenneth Folk on Bill Hamilton
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...
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Trudy Goodman on Seungsahn
Vince Fakhoury Horn is joined by dharma teacher Trudy Goodman, founder of InsightLA, to share reflections on her beloved teacher, Seungsahn. Seungsahn Haengwon (Sungsan Haeng'weon Daeseonsa, August 1, 1927 – November 30, 2004), born Duk-In Lee, was a Korean Seon master of the Jogye Order and...
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Buddhist Geeks have?
Buddhist Geeks currently has 495 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Buddhist Geeks about?
Evolving Dharma in the Age of the Network www.buddhistgeeks.org
How often does Buddhist Geeks release new episodes?
Buddhist Geeks publishes regularly with 495 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Buddhist Geeks?
You can listen to Buddhist Geeks on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Buddhist Geeks?
Buddhist Geeks is created and hosted by Vince Fakhoury Horn.
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