Ethics and Engagement in Contemporary Buddhism

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 here with Daniel Thorson, hanging out in your office-slash-bedroom. You've been in the Asheville area for what—a year now?

Daniel Thorson: Almost two years, actually.

Vince: Whoa, really? That’s wild! And this is our first time recording together since you moved here. Doing it in person feels weird—so hyper-intimate.

Daniel: Yeah. It’s a whole 3D—or maybe even 4D—experience.

Vince: More D than that if you include yourself.Daniel: Totally.Vince: So, I suggested we record because, well, we were going to hang out anyway, and you’ve been writing a really interesting series on your Substack, The Intimate Mirror.

Daniel: Yeah, that’s the one. Initially, I was exploring AI as a kind of mirror—how to use and work with it. But I’ve taken a side journey into critiquing Western Buddhism. I’m planning to do some reconstructive work too, eventually.

Vince: Especially the American convert Buddhist scenes we’ve been part of, right? Like, the Buddhist Geeks orbit, Insight Meditation world, maybe even broader—Consensus Buddhism, as David Chapman calls it.

Daniel: Exactly. My focus is mostly on modern Western Buddhist culture. That includes Insight Meditation, but also Westernized Zen, and even American Vajrayana. It's like a meta-sangha of Buddhist Modernism.

Vince: Right. Like the teachers who went to hang out with the Dalai Lama in the 90s and asked, "How can we make Buddhism more friendly to the West?" And now there’s this whole ecosystem.

Daniel: Definitely. And I want to be clear: I'm not critiquing individual teachers. It's more about the communities and cultures that have grown around them—looking at their gifts and their shadows.

Vince: So you’ve got Consensus Buddhism on one hand and Pragmatic Dharma—what you call the Tech Bro Buddhist scene—on the other. I loved your piece on the "Upper Middle Path and the Tech Bros." You brought in critiques I’ve seen mostly in academic circles—people like David McMahan and Ann Gleig—but you made it much more accessible and relevant.

Daniel: Thanks. That was the goal: take these ideas out of esoteric academic circles and bring them into contemporary discourse. Especially around communities like ours that are immersed in Buddhist Geeks-type spaces.

Vince: It felt like a kind of moral responsibility to name the limitations and mistakes we've seen—or made—over the years. Like, I see a lot of younger folks in the liminal web, teapot Twitter, etc., getting into Buddhist modernism the way we were 15 years ago.

Daniel: Exactly. And I think it's important we help them avoid some of the pitfalls. Not because we’re better or more advanced, but just because we've had more time to metabolize these dynamics.

Vince: Right. I mean, early Buddhist Geeks was full-on modernist—tech, enlightenment, Daniel Ingram’s stage models. But it evolved. Ann Gleig even said she saw postmodern elements starting to emerge in that community. I think she was right.

Daniel: Totally. And part of my own evolution, especially through training at the Monastic Academy, has been this inquiry into ethics—specifically, how ethical responsiveness is missing in a lot of Buddhist spaces. That’s especially problematic in a time of planetary crisis.

Vince: It’s not just about meditating in caves or on retreat anymore. There's a demand for something deeper and more responsive. A lot of Buddhism as it’s been practiced here feels avoidant—especially to folks with avoidant attachment styles. It’s like a refuge from complexity, not a way of meeting it.

Daniel: Exactly. And even in the engaged Buddhist scenes, it can feel like there's a polarity—like the rest of Buddhism is disengaged by default.

Vince: There’s been some shifts, especially post-George Floyd. Consensus Buddhism became more pluralistic, more explicitly social justice-oriented. But even then, it can become polarized—like progressive vs. liberal politics.

Daniel: Right. And on the Pragmatic Dharma side, you see a resistance to that pluralism. It’s still very focused on individual attainment, hyper-rational, and map-model heavy. It’s like a cultural left/right divide.

Vince: I’ve started avoiding the masculine/feminine language because it triggers so many people. I use "self-focused" and "other-focused" instead. Pragmatic Dharma = self-focused; Consensus Buddhism = other-focused. There’s a polarity there.

Daniel: That feels accurate. And yet, both scenes are struggling with ethics. The Tech Bro Dharma scene risks erasing the generative function of suffering. There’s this idea that suffering is just a bug to be fixed.

Vince: Right. And people like Shinzen Young and Daniel Ingram do qualify that—it’s perceptual suffering, not all suffering. But the popularizers, like Nick Cammarata on X.com, often simplify it down to "eliminate suffering, be happy."

Daniel: Which is dangerous. Suffering is supposed to be understood, not eliminated. It teaches us about being in right relationship with reality. Removing it through tech could erase the ethical feedback loops we need.

Vince: And that’s not just theoretical. We've seen examples—teachers like Culadasa, who bypassed relational feedback in ways that created real harm.

Daniel: Or on the other side, in Consensus Buddhism, where the focus becomes eliminating social suffering through systems change—but sometimes it loses the locus of individual responsibility. It becomes ideologically confused.

Vince: Yeah. It’s like both sides are overcorrecting, and what we really need is a new synthesis. Something that honors both individual and collective transformation.

Daniel: The best example I’ve seen of that is John Churchill’s Planetary Dharma. I’m in his Level 1 training, and it weaves individual and relational ethics beautifully.

Vince: I’ve heard good things. Also, Tom Huston’s Kosmic Dharma project seems to be trying something similar, from a more Advaita direction.

Daniel: And Robert Burbea’s Soulmaking Dharma, which really helps people deconstruct secular materialism and reopen to a sacred worldview.

Vince: Yeah, I’ve seen that too. Even in the Pragmatic Dharma scene, many of the original rationalists are now post-rational, magical thinkers. Daniel Ingram literally has wands.

Daniel: That’s the resilience of the Dharma. Practice sincerely, and it eventually breaks out of those constraints.

Vince: That said, I think we’re in a phase of necessary deconstruction before meaningful reconstruction can happen.

Daniel: Totally. And we need to talk about ethics now, not wait for the practice to eventually bring people around.

Vince: Which raises a tricky question: How do you do this work—invite a new synthesis—without just creating a new brand of Buddhism that becomes subject to the same market dynamics?

Daniel: It's hard. But maybe it's less about building one big thing and more about encouraging mutations. Experiments. Some may become new institutions. Others might just be small, temporary communities. I’ve been part of a project called the Church of the Intimate Web that’s experimenting with that.

Vince: I love that. To me, anything that includes the three trainings—ethics, meditation, wisdom—is Buddhist, whether or not it uses the label.

Daniel: Same. And while I’m deeply grateful to the institutions that formed me, I’m not optimistic about their ability to adapt. This series is, in some ways, a goodbye letter to Buddhism for me.

Vince: That might be a key difference between us. I’m still invested in evolving Buddhism from within, even while exploring the edges. Buddhist Geeks is still about that.

Daniel: And thank God for that. Because you’re right: we also need bridges. Between elders and newcomers. Between experimental scenes and rooted lineages. Otherwise, we risk losing our moorings.

Vince: There’s so much anti-authoritarian energy in these new spaces, and yet the real problem isn’t gatekeepers—it’s often a lack of inner trust.

Daniel: Exactly. And until people find legitimate external authority they can trust, it’s hard to develop real inner authority.

Vince: We need both elders and experimentalists. And we need to keep honoring the lineage that made any of this even possible.

Daniel: Amen.

The Jhāna Community

Daniel Thorson will be joining Vince and the Jhāna Community next month for a 4-week teaching series exploring how secure attachment to reality can serve as the basis for jhāna practice. Yes, we plan on recording it!

Live teaching series w/ Daniel Thorson online: Thursday May 8, 15, 22, & 29 @ 4pm Eastern TimeIMPORTANT NOTE: The Jhāna Community will be open for new applicants in the month of May.