''Buddhist Geeks'' is a

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

, online magazine, and annual conference with a primary focus on American Buddhism. It was established in 2006 by Vince Horn and Ryan Oelke. Past guests have included

Brad Warner Brad Warner (born March 5, 1964) is an American Sōtō, Sōtō Zen teacher, author, blogger, documentarian and punk rock bass guitarist. Biography Brad Warner was born in Hamilton, Ohio, in 1964. His family traveled for his father's job and Warn ...

Shinzen Young is an American meditation teacher. He leads residential and remote meditation retreats for students interested in learning the Vipassana (insight) tradition of Buddhism. He was originally ordained in Japan as a monk in the Shingon (Japanese Vaj ...

, and

B. Alan Wallace Bruce Alan Wallace (born 1950) is an American Buddhologist of Tibetan Buddhism and author. He has authored many texts in the field of contemplative science, most notably ''The Attention Revolution'' on the cultivation of Samatha, and ''Dreaming ...

. Jack Kornfield's comment on the first Buddhist Geeks conference was: "It's clear that the electronic virtual interconnected web and the online world is the wild way that the Dharma stream is flowing, and the geeks have their minds dialled into the revolutionary next generation." In 2012, Vincent Horn and Rohan Gunatillake were featured in

Wired UK ''Wired UK'' is a bimonthly magazine that reports on the effects of science and technology. It covers a broad range of topics including design, architecture, culture, the economy, politics and philosophy. Owned by Condé Nast Publications, it is ...

's Smart List 2012.

History

Founders Vince Horn and Ryan Oelke noticed there was little in the media specifically addressing the interests of Westerners in

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

and decided to create a

to fill the gap. It first appeared in 2007. Horn and Oelke were

Religious Studies Religious studies, also known as religiology or the study of religion, is the study of religion from a historical or scientific perspective. There is no consensus on what qualifies as ''religion'' and definition of religion, its definition is h ...

students of

Naropa University Naropa University is a private university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1974 by Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa, it is named after the 11th-century Indian Buddhist sage Naropa, an abbot of Nalanda. The university ...

, a Buddhist-inspired

liberal arts college A liberal arts college or liberal arts institution of higher education is a college with an emphasis on Undergraduate education, undergraduate study in the Liberal arts education, liberal arts of humanities and science. Such colleges aim to impart ...

Boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In ...

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

. Gwen Bell joined within six months and remained with the team for approximately one year.

Podcast

By 2010, podcast downloads had exceeded 1 million. To date, 449 episodes have been produced, including interviews,

dharma talks A Dharma talk (Sanskrit) or Dhamma talk (Pali) or Dharma sermon (''Japanese'': , ''Chinese'': ) is a public discourse on Buddhism by a Buddhist teacher. In Theravāda Buddhism, the study of Buddhist texts and listening to Dhamma talks by monks o ...

, and other topics of interest to people involved in modern

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

teaching and practice. These often include explorations of the interface between Buddhism and branches of modern science, such as

neurology Neurology (from , "string, nerve" and the suffix wikt:-logia, -logia, "study of") is the branch of specialty (medicine) , medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the nervous syst ...

game theory Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions. It has applications in many fields of social science, and is used extensively in economics, logic, systems science and computer science. Initially, game theory addressed ...

. Occasionally, interviewees have been invited from outside the Buddhist community, where their concerns might present matters of interest to Buddhist practitioners.

Online magazine

The website or online magazine was updated in 2009 to support increasing interest from the

community. The Buddhist Geeks website is the online magazine, with pages for each podcast episode as the primary content, with additional video media and blog posts.

Conference

In 2010, Buddhist Geeks left the purely digital world with its first in-person event, the Buddhist Geeks Conference. The first event, held in the summer of 2011 in Los Angeles, has been featured in many publications, including Tricycle, Fast Company, and the LA Times. Since then, the conference has become an annual event featuring talks, round table discussions, and meditation. The Buddhist Geeks Conference 2012 took place August 9 through 11 in the University Memorial Center on the Colorado University campus; the 2013 Conference was in the same venue, August 16 through 18.

References

External links

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LA Times Overview of Conference

Tricycle Review of Conference

Wired UK Smart List Story

Boulder Daily Camera story
{{Podcast platform links Buddhist media Online magazines published in the United States Audio podcasts Magazines established in 2009 American podcasts 2007 podcast debuts Religion and spirituality podcasts