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This episode of Buddhist Geeks features a candid and heartfelt conversation between Vince Fakhoury Horn and Tasshin Fogleman about Palestine, the TPOT subculture, and what it means to embody true Bodhisattvahood. They explore the limitations of online discourse, especially around contentious issues, and reflect on the importance of good-faith dialogue, friendship, and spiritual integrity in times of crisis.
Join Vince Fakhoury Horn and Brian Newman outside of Lisbon, Portugal at the beginning of 2026 for a 10-day intensive jhāna retreat. There, we’ll be exploring The Flavors of Jhāna.
Episode Transcript
Vince:
Hey Tasshin.
Tasshin:
Hi Vince.
We just talked before I hit record. We just talked still. It's like formally. Hi. Hi.
Tasshin:
We're here.
Vince:
Yeah, exactly. That's good to see you.
Tasshin:
Yeah, good to see you too, brother. Yeah.
Vince:
Yeah, man, I appreciate you being willing to I invited you to have this conversation on X or my favorite platform to hate,
Tasshin:
My
favorite platform to love.
Vince:
Great. I was there with you for a while, but yeah, it's getting a little weird. It's it's getting a little Faschy,
X but we'll probably talk about that. So I propose that we talk about, this was the theme I proposed to you, which is Palestine, TPOT, and True Bodhisattvahood..
And it's, I guess in response to a lot of frustrated, angry, maybe righteous and not in a necessarily, in all bad sense. But yeah, in some posts that I've been sharing on X since I don't know it's been ongoing since the October 7th in my case. So I guess I wanted to explore that with you because I consider you to be one of my friends in the TPOT subculture, which we can get into and talk about what that actually is, Uhhuh because it's pretty, and it's it's vagueish, but, or decentralized at least.
But it seems like you're well respected in this decentralized subculture and I think I'm part of that as well, but I seem to be taking a very different role from you and how I relate to it, which is a little bit more critical and
Challenging and, I haven't found that's really endeared me to many people in the community.
But some people like yourself have engaged with my critiques in what feels like a good faith way, and I've really appreciated that. So I thought, it'd be cool to have a, an even more personal conversation where people could see potentially if we decide to release any of this.
And I don't know, just the human side of this, which doesn't come across often in 280 characters.
Tasshin:
Yeah. I appreciate all that context. I think that's really helpful and I think it's good to have a conversation about this. I think that I've been really struck by your perspectives on this and in general, I really value your perspectives and your opinions about the path and about practice and, we've had a number of disagreements over the years, but I've always walked away, like really learning a lot. And yeah, I do try to engage in good faith and I think especially one of the practices I have just for any kind of conflict in general is if I feel like text-based mediums especially can only hold so much.
I don't even like to discourse or disagree on Twitter. I use it for other things and it's hey, if I'm, I've said this to you before, if we have a disagreement, let's get on a call and actually talk about it. And because it's just, you can actually hear the other person's perspective and where they're coming from in a way that text just really doesn't afford.
So I'm glad we're talking about this. Yeah, I think it's great. Yeah.
Vince:
And the downside of doing that without recording it and sharing it back, because of course then it's just like a private thing that happens Right, and doesn't necessarily filter out in the same way to the collective.
Tasshin:
Totally. Totally.
So
Vince:
This is cool. Yeah. Thank you.
Tasshin:
Do you have any suggestions for where you'd like to start or what feels like a good starting place?
Vince:
I would be curious to see your take on what TPOT is or how you'd describe that phenomena. I did spend a little bit of time reflecting on it, and I came up with a little, like micro definition, but I don't think it's exhaustive this a starting point.
But I'm curious even before sharing that, if there's anything, thoughts on TPOT and what it is, if you've thought, have you meditated on that? How do you can,
Tasshin:
yeah. I love that and I'm so curious what your definition will be. I suspect it'll be s