BG 001: Meet the Geeks

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Episode Description:

In our 1st episode, “Meet the Geeks” you’ll hear the three founding members of Buddhist Geeks discussing the vision behind this project. By weaving together snippets of a larger conversation this podcast should give you a sense of what this project is about and how you can contribute to it.

The following episodes will be interviews with Buddhist teachers, scholars, and advanced practitioners who we feel have provocative perspectives to offer.

We hope you enjoy!

Transcript:

Vince: It all started back when Ryan and I were talking about how there wasn’t really much in the buddho-blogosphere that we were really interested in. There are some great sites, and a lot of people quoting cool stuff on their sites, and it just… wasn’t the kind of thing that we were really excited about, and the kind of conversations we we interested in having… like we were sitting there in the coffee shop talking about practice and talking about some geeky stages of insight and stages of concentration, and what’s actually happening in our practices and comparing notes and trying to understand each other’s traditions, talking about different contemporary issues that people who are practitioners have to deal with, and we were like, ‘Wow, it’d be really cool to bring these kinds of conversations to a larger, broader audience’, and so that was kind of, that was the impetus for Buddhist Geeks and that’s the main reason that I’m interested in contributing to it and helping mould it.

Ryan: Yeah, I always felt that there was that whole, that… most of the Dharma that I read, either in books or on the blogosphere, tended to just be either from the traditional standpoint, ‘here are the teachings and this is what you do with that’, then occasionally you get a little bit about practice in modern society, but it’s more so that modern times are the problem, usually, like that… so it’s not usually a discussion about how our practice is changing to meet our culture where it’s at. So I think that’s part of what I’d like to see here, is have these dynamic conversations that go beyond just the sort of traditional discussions, if that makes sense.

Vince: Then we have Gwen who just joined us recently and she’s spent some time studying Zen in Japan…

Gwen: Hey y’all.

Vince: Hey y’all. (Gwen laughs) So she definitely has an interesting perspective there- neither Ryan nor I have actually spent time in the countries the traditions were practicing in, so she has an interesting perspective in that way.

Gwen: Yeah. And I think, definitely what I learned in Japan was kind of how to merge these modern and traditional vibes. Kind of what I’m seeing in the west is this attempt to merge these things, and sometimes we succeed in doing that and sometimes we don’t, so… same in the East, I mean they’re trying to incorporate more Western values and… it’s just funny to see it from both sides- I think Japan, the Japanese are like… there’s this constant push for modernisation, and over here we’re kinda trying to get back to the roots or whatever, so it’s just an interesting dynamic.

Ryan: The merging is another thing that I’m interested in… especially considering our geeky team we have here, is that in the West not only do we have like traditional forms of Buddhism meaning the modern times, but we’re having all these different traditions merging at once, so as a practitioner I have access immediately to insight teachers, to Tibetan Buddhist teachers, Zen teachers, Pure Land teachers, all at once, whereas the traditional countries – Japan, Tibet, China – they didn’t really have that, they more had the barebones Buddhism coming to them, and then it started taking cultural forms – at least thats how I’ve seen in the history – so I think that’s pretty interesting and I wonder how that’s going to play out over time, because it seems like Westerners, we do sort of tap into other traditions even if we’re situated in one- so I might be a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner but I certainly have plenty of Zen books, and having the three of us here coming from three different traditions sort of fits that discussion, I think.

Vince: I think another interesting thing’s that were all in our twenties- we’re all twentysomethings, ranging from twenty-three to twenty-seven…

Ryan: Twenty-eight…

Vince: Twenty-eight, sorry… (laughs)

Ryan: Had to bring it up! (laughs)

Vince: So I think I’ve noticed- I don’t know if you guys have seen this, but in a lot of retreats and communities that I’ve been involved in, there really aren’t that many twentysomethings in relation to the larger demographic, which is generally like, around the Boomer age, most women in the tradition I’m practicing in – insight meditation – and I think it’s interesting for a number of reasons, but I wonder where are the twenty somethings, and what are they thinking, and how can we contribute to this sort of ‘Gen Y’ Buddhism…

Gwen: That’s a good question.

Ryan: And that’s an interesting question, to see what our impetus is for our generation- because the boomer generation, they were the ones to really bring the Dharma here and to really establish it, but maybe that’s part of the issue, I really don’t know… but maybe the twentysomethings are sort of wandering around in this unknown place in practice, I don’t know.

Gwen: It comes down to, like, there are so many options available, that it’s very hard to focus in on one, right? We just have this pick and choose approach – like buffet-style, y’know, approach (laughs) to spirituality – which can be beneficial and it can also be dangerous.

Ryan: Yeah, that goes back to what I was saying that because we have that right in front of us even in Barnes and Noble and you have like… just all those books right there, and what do you do with that? I mean, I imagine a lot of folks just get confused- I felt confused just seeing one tradition, trying to decide ‘should I practice?’, let alone all of these wonderful world traditions at our fingertips.

Gwen: I think we are playing into that, in a sense, because we are going to offer a variety of podcasts from a variety of speakers, our interviewees… but also I think we are going to give people an opportunity to narrow their focus, like, to make a choice. Because ultimately, you do have to pick a practice and stick with it, I mean…

Ryan: I like that we’ll be merging our experience as practitioners right in the midst of a path, with really experienced teachers and practitioners in our podcasts. I think having us discuss what our expeiences are like right now in the midst of it, rather than feeling like we’re sort of passive in this whole process of Buddhist practice, that this is a neat merging for that.

Vince: It seems like we’re going to be wanting to bring a lot of our listeners and our readers to the conversation and have them contribute in a really meaningful way, either through the comments that they leave on our blog or to the feedback that we get on who they want to hear on the podcasts… like what teachers they’re interested in hearing more about, or what questions they want answered, what’s going on in their practice…

Gwen: So, letting them lead us, basically.

Ryan: Yes, I’m glad you brought that up, because that is one of the most important things of this whole site, is that… if we don’t have readers and people addressing what’s going on and actually talking about it, then I don’t really see a point in it, y’know, so I think that has to be integral to what we do.

Vince: Maybe we could mention specifically who we’ve interviewed so far and who we have in mind…

Gwen: We have some inter- some intergrues going on (laughs) today and tomorrow, so let’s start there…

Vince: Yeah, you’re interviewing who today and tomorrow?

Gwen: Today, Fleet Maul, for the second time – I’m totally pumped because he’s such an incredible teacher, and yeah, just looking forward to having another conversation with him- every chance I get to interact with Fleet, I do, because he’s just putting out so much good energy into the world, and I love him… and then, tomorrow is Stuart Davis, and I only just met him, at somebody’s birthday party (laughs) and we spent about an hour chatting at the bar and having a beer, and just found him to be such a, y’know, dynamic and just energetic… I mean, he’s just had a baby- I mean, he didn’t but his wife did (laughs) and still has this incredible capacity to energise a room, and I don’t know, how do you do that…

Ryan: He’s a Zen practitioner?

Gwen: He sure is – as far as I know, Soto – and Fleet is with the Shambala tradition, but he has a lot of crossover with Shambalan Zen too. So that’s who I’ll be interviewing tomorrow, it should be a fun, really fun time. How about y’all?

Ryan: Well, Vince interviewed Alan Wallace, as we mentioned on the site already, and Daniel Ingram, so you can, I don’t know, say a couple of…

Vince: Yeah, I talked to Alan – actually just emailed him, found his email address on a site and said, ‘Hey, we’re starting this cool Buddhist geeky project, do you want to talk to us?’ and he was, right away got back with me and made some time to talk, and we talked about some really cool stuff, mostly related to Buddhism, science, Shamatha – which is concentration practice, he talks a lot about that – and also talked to a friend and teacher of mine, Daniel Ingram, who is a Theravada practitioner and… not a very well known guy, but very interesting perspectives on enlightenment and practice, and very geeky about certain maps that can be used to describe the territory that one might traverse if they’re practicing certain techniques, so both of those should be really interesting.

Ryan: So I interviewed Phil Stanley – he’s another person that maybe people don’t know about too much – he’s in the Shambala community and a professor at Naropa University, very very geeky, as you will find out, he studied at the University of Virginia with Jeffrey Hopkins, who I’m sure many of you know. We’ll probably talk to him multiple times – he has so much knowledge across the board in Buddhism, that’s his thing, the academic route is a big part of what he’s done in his life but he also is a really committed practitioner in the Shambala community, and the Tart Institute, and really dedicated to the studying, with a view, sort of, of the path of Buddhism, so…

Then we have Reggie Ray hopefully lined up, he’s said yes to an interview so- not yet recorded that, but perhaps by the time this podcast appears we will have an interview, we’re not sure what we’ll talk to him about but it will be good for sure.

Gwen: And Diane Hamilton, actually we plan to talk with her, I’ll probably talk with her… she doesn’t know it yet, she’s going to find out… (laughs)

Vince: If you’re listening Diane, we want to talk to you! (laughs)

Gwen: …which brings up a pretty important point, we’re talking a lot about men right now, the masculine side of things, and we hope to incorporate women’s voices and the female, and the feminine into this project as well, to the degree that we can, there’s been a lot of… very heavy male slant on things, and I think women in their twenties and thirties… the audience that we’ll probably be talking a lot with, we need to have them hearing some female voices too, hearing how women are incorporating this into their lives as well.

Vince: So the way that the format of the site is going to work is that we’re going to plan on, every week having a podcast on Monday morning, and that’ll either be an interview with a teacher, a scholar, an advanced practitioner, someone that we really respect, admire and has an intersting perspective to offer…

Ryan: Those will be about ten, fifteen minutes, so it’s something nice to digest, and also to really think about, reflect on and comment on, so we’ll all have time to really engage each other with that.

Vince: And then we’ll also be putting up two written posts each week, from either one of the three of us or people who want to contribute guest posts, people that have interesting things to say and want to turn it sort of a high a high quality… essay, I guess, and we’ll be hoping to stir up a lot of comments around those posts, and some of them will be controversial, some of them will take certain perspectives on that aren’t all that popular, just for the sake of maybe having a conversation, and others will be less so, but definitely look, look for those…

Gwen: And if you say something crazy, then we’ll still delete you.

Vince: (laughs) Oh yeah, we want to stir up conversation, but we don’t want complete disregard for other people’s perspectives so…

Gwen: Yeah, respect people…

Vince: Respect… R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Gwen: …and if there’s an area you feel that we’re not covering, please let us know, like send us some comments or personal emails, and we will look into that, see how we can incorporate that into the site. Because we’re looking to grow through this too, I mean, the three of us are definitely seeing this as a growth project, so we don’t expect to have all the answers, or even pretend to. So, let us know if we’re missing something, even if it seems really obvious.