The Great Unbundling, with Vincent Horn
In this episode I talk with mindfulness teacher and co-founder of the Buddhist Geeks project, Vincent Horn. Vince is part of new generation of teachers translating age-old wisdom into 21st century code. In this session, Vince and I discuss the radical sense of experimentation, the Great Unbundling of the Dharma, ways the mindfulness and awareness practices complement each other—which is turning out to be something of a theme on the show lately—, the perhaps greatly exaggerated reports of the death of Buddhism, what Buddhism and meditation can offer the Silicon Valley worldview. as well as a scintillating juvenile foray into enlightened scatology. Learn more about Vince at Buddhist Geeks. Show Notes 0:25 Introduction and overview 1:52 – Vince talks about Buddhist Geeks, his interest in mindfulness and his teaching project at meditate.io 3:45 – Vince's meditation and teaching background, working with somatic practices and vipassanā, and his time at Naropa University 8:16 – What's exciting and interesting in mindfulness now, radical experimentation in the new generation, the unbundling of the Dharma 11:38 – Playing with the core meditative elements (concentration, inquiry, etc.) of different traditions 14:45 – Defining mindfulness and awareness, and how they work together 24:45 – Has Buddhism weeded out all meditative dead-ends or is experimentation and knowing for oneself useful? Can we discover things that haven't been done before? 28:22 – Technology and making sense of what practice is while rapid change is occurring 30:34 – Scatology: literal and figurative shit 33:50 – Human relationships: self, other, and “individuality first” in practice 37:00 – The co-construction of reality, and social noting 42:15 – Meditation's reinvention in the 1800s and 1900s, and the arising of noting in response to colonialism 44:54 – Is Buddhism dying? 49:33 – Silicon Valley, immortality, and Ray Kurzweil 57:36 – The juice of the unknown and a shift in the way we know things 1:04:40 – As many types of nonduality as dualities 1:07:16 – Vince and Emily's teaching synergy, one-on-one teacher meetings You can help to create future episodes of this podcast by contributing through Patreon.