Recent Posts
Wired UK’s Smart List 2012
February 23, 2012
Last month my close friend and collaborator Rohan Gunatillake, were featured in a cover story for Wired magazine. The title of the piece is, The Smart List 2012: 50 people who are going to change the world. We were nominated by Jane McGonigal, an incredibly cool game designer that we interviewed last year, and who [...]
A Geek’s-Eye View of the Future of Spiritual Practice
January 3, 2012
Recently, I had the great pleasure of doing an extended interview with Terry Patten on his Beyond Awakening series. He invited me to share some of my perspectives on where the future of spiritual practice is heading–the so-called “geek’s-eye view”. We also explored questions to which there don’t seem to be clear cut answers yet [...]
Uniting Technology and Wisdom
November 20, 2011
I gave a talk on Friday evening at the Pacific Asia Art Museum on “Buddhist Geeks: Uniting Technology and Wisdom.” The talk was a broad look at the way that the development of global Buddhism and the exponential growth of information technology (particularly through the development of the personal computer and internet) are converging, and [...]
Buddhism and the Internet of Things
August 15, 2011
I was recently invited to participate in a panel at the upcoming SXSWi festival in Austin, Texas. SXSWi has been described to me as “geek spring break” and although I’ve wanted to go the last couple years I haven’t been able to make it. But this year I might, because I may on the panel, [...]
Look Ma, I’m in the Los Angeles Times!
August 11, 2011
Buddhist Geeks received a wonderful write-up last week in the Los Angeles Times. The article was entitled, “Buddhist wonks? No, Buddhist Geeks” Mitchell Landsberg, the author of the piece, joined us at the Buddhist Geeks Conference and afterwards we did an interview at the 18th St. Coffeeshop in Santa Monica. This coffeeshop is rumored to [...]
An Open Source Approach to Meditation Practice
August 9, 2011
[This is the 2nd part of a interview I did with New Zealand based teacher Peter Fernando. It appeared on his site A Month of Mindfulness.] Peter: So another question I have relates to what you call an ‘Open Source’ approach to meditation, where there is a freedom to draw from all kinds of practices. [...]
Vulnerability Will Definitely Kill You
June 9, 2011
“I say vulnerable is woundable.” – The Guru Pitka So much of what I’ve been learning about lately is around vulnerability. Vulnerability in a psychological sense, of seeing my own limitations and being willing to acknowledge them. And also in a more cognitive and spiritual sense. The cognitive vulnerability has to do with dropping common [...]
Choiceless Awareness and the Turning Crystal of Awakening
May 22, 2011
[The following is an edited transcript from a recent exchange I had with a student in one of my pragmatic dharma classes online. I'm posting it here because it brings together several main themes that keep cropping up in how I'm teaching, which I find very important in approaching meditation practice from a pragmatic perspective.] [...]