The Pragmatic Dharma Sangha
Goodbye Jhāna Community, Hello Comprehensive Dharma Training!
The Pragmatic Dharma Sangha
Today, I want to talk about the dissolution of The Jhāna Community and the arising of the Pragmatic Dharma Sangha.
Almost two years ago, I started the Jhāna Community in response to some Jhāna Drama—what I saw as negligent leadership by some tech founders who were trying to secularize the practice of jhāna. I wanted to offer something better, a secular presentation rooted in the depth of the Buddhist tradition.
After two years of running this project and bringing in collaborators, including Brian Newman and my long-time partner Emily Horn, we have created a robust, small community of practice focused on the experience of jhāna and the multidimensional practice of meditation. However, during our first in-person community retreat in Portugal, a participant asked: “Why doesn’t the jhāna community feel more like a community? Are there things we could do to make it more like one?”
At that point, I realized the problem is the original framing of The Jhāna Community. In response to the secularization of jhāna I had consciously unbundled the training of Concentration Meditation from the traditional three Buddhist trainings that also include Morality/Ethics and Insight/Wisdom. While this unbundling opens the opportunity to reach people who might not be interested in Awakening or who have different ethical systems, it also allows for a very narrow vision. If the extent of your aspiration is to experience a “drugless high” then well, that’s cool, but not all that inspiring.
For Dharma practitioners, like myself, who have taken refuge in the Three Jewels (the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha), this vision of unbundled meditation is missing something. It is lacking. There is dukkha in that vision. I believe the only way community truly arises is when we have a shared vision for how we’re living. The practice shouldn’t just be for ourselves; it must be for us and for those with whom we are connected. That shared vision, combined with being in the same room and doing things together, is what gives rise to a genuine community.
We just completed a 10-day in-person retreat called “The Flavors of Jhāna.” This was the first time in this community of practice that people have gathered in the same room to really be together—enjoying each other’s company, annoying each other, eating together, meditating out loud, and sharing in silence.
To address the question, “Why doesn’t the jhāna community feel like a community?” I actually see that inquiry as the spark of community itself. That question can only be asked within a community space: “Why is this thing lacking in so many ways?”
I believe there are two main reasons for this feeling. First, we haven’t fully integrated the three trainings. We lack a comprehensive vision that goes beyond the self. We need something we are doing together that is bigger than us. Second, we have been completely digital. In my experience building Sanghas, completely virtual communities are not truly communities at all. You must have an analog dimension for the digital to feel embodied.
For example, when I was helping to build the Dharma Overground with Daniel Ingram, we started as a virtual message board. While helpful, most people didn’t know each other “in real life” (IRL), and there was a lack of community. A few years later, Daniel invited several of us to his house to meditate and hang out and celebrate his 40th Birthday party. Even though only five or six people attended, that embodied instantiation created a deeper connection that flowed back into the message board and had a cumulative effect on the community vibe, for months after.
By centering the Pragmatic Dharma Sangha as both Analog and Digital, we believe the kind of community people are asking for will become possible.
The Pragmatic Dharma Sangha is a specific Buddhist lineage that is becoming more comprehensive and inclusive. Moving forward, we are expanding the domain of practice in three ways. First, we will explicitly include Ethics and Wisdom alongside meditation and concentration. Second, we will anchor the community in at least one annual meditation retreat. Our next Pragmatic Dharma retreat is scheduled for January 2nd through the 11th, 2027 in Western North Carolina. Third, we are intentionally cultivating in-person communities rooted in specific geographies. For instance, Brian has been leading a growing Pragmatic Dharma group in Lisbon, Portugal, that meets once a month and I’m now doing the same near Asheville, North Carolina. In addition, we’re inviting several dedicated students, including those that just joined us on retreat, to start-up local meet-up groups in their cities.
Our goal is to foster local communities of practice in specific cities while gathering together as a global community once or twice a year for retreats. This is how we transform from a community of interest into a true community of practice.
A Globally Distributed Holarchical Network
The Pragmatic Dharma Sangha represents a new model for Buddhist community in the 21st century: a globally distributed holarchical network. This structure honors the vertical dimension of traditional dharma transmission—where genuine depth requires years of training, intimate teacher-student relationship, and progressive stages of commitment—while embracing the horizontal dimension of networked, decentralized community. Local sanghas & meet-ups in cities around the world operate with creative autonomy while remaining connected through shared vision, periodic in-person retreat, and digital infrastructure that supports rather than replaces embodied practice.
At the heart of this model is a five-stage developmental pathway:
Wandering Seeker
Sangha Member
Sangha Leader
Meditation Teacher
Lineage Holder
These stages aren’t rungs on a ladder to climb as quickly as possible—they’re containers that are available to fully inhabit. Each stage carries its own commitments, guidelines, and scope of practice. A Sangha Leader facilitates local community; a Meditation Teacher builds livelihood around the training of meditation; a Lineage Holder carries the full training and transmission of lineage. The shape is an inverted pyramid: many seekers, few lineage holders, with each level including and building upon the commitments of the prior stages.
This structure emerged from a simple recognition: purely digital communities centered on technique alone don’t generate true sangha. Community arises when we share a vision for how we’re living—when practice isn’t just for ourselves but for those with whom we’re connected. By rebundling the three traditional Buddhist trainings of Ethics, Meditation, and Wisdom, and by anchoring the global network in annual embodied retreats and thriving local practice communities, the Pragmatic Dharma Sangha offers a path that is both ancient in its lineage and contemporary in its expression.
The Five Stages of Training
We are treating the Pragmatic Dharma Sangha as a course of depth training. We see the potential for depth in this lineage to span many years/decades. Consequently, we have identified five stages of practice or training within the Pragmatic Dharma lineage.
You can think of these as stages because you can move through them progressively, but you can also think of them as positions or places you inhabit. The goal isn’t necessarily to reach Stage 5; the goal is to find what you need and practice at the level of depth that is most important to you.
Stage 1: The Wandering Seeker
The wandering seeker is someone just beginning to engage with Pragmatic Dharma, the community, or the Sangha. This could be through an online course, a local community meetup (such as those in Lisbon or Asheville), or a YouTube video or guided meditation. Regardless of how they encounter it, they are in a seeking position. They are looking for something to engage with more deeply, or perhaps they are just checking things out. The main point is that the wandering seeker is not yet in a committed engagement with the lineage.
Stage 2: The Sangha Member
Moving to this stage means joining the Sangha and committing to the practice. As they say in The Matrix, you see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Sangha Members have access to local activities and events, the virtual domain and privately recorded material, all developed courses and live content, and any cohort or course of practice (without additional fees). We encourage you to dive as deeply as you like, as there is potentially more value the deeper you go.
Sangha members support the Pragmatic Dharma Sangha through a monthly financial contribution. They can change the amount they’re contributing at any time, or cancel it without any deceptive patterns getting in the way. This monthly membership fee supports the execution of our vision and the livelihood of our founding teachers.
Stage 3: The Sangha Leader
It is natural for many Sangha members to become leaders through their own training and engagement. To become a Sangha leader, you need to attend an in-person retreat with one of the following teachers (Kenneth Folk, Vince Horn, Emily Horn, or Brian Newman), so that we can meet “face-to-face and eye-to-eye.” Sangha Leaders are folks who are interested in bringing deliberate practice opportunities back to your local geographic community.
Sangha leaders can start or join local Pragmatic Dharma Sanghas and enact the vision of those communities. While they receive material support from the Global Sangha and Lineage Holders, they are free to lead creatively and manage their communities as they see fit.
All Sangha leaders will be trained in the facilitation of Social Meditation (a peer-to-peer meditation practice) and will be encouraged and empowered to host regular social meditations and silent meditations. They will bring in learning material from the Pragmatic Dharma Sangha and receive training support on facilitating peer-led discussions.
Stage 4: The Meditation Teacher
This is a very important role and represents a significant step in the developmental pathway: becoming a Meditation Teacher in the Pragmatic Dharma lineage. This stage involves mastering the training of Meditation–inside and out—learning to work with people individually one-on-one as a meditation teacher and coach, understanding best practices for working with people in groups, and teaching in Buddhist, religious-hybrid (mixed-tradition), and secular contexts.
A meditation teacher begins to build a livelihood around their teaching, borrowing from the wide network and content of the Pragmatic Dharma community. While we expect teachers to go deep in their own practice, this level does not yet include leading multi-day residential retreats, or training other teachers. Those responsibilities are reserved for the final stage of practice…
Stage 5: The Lineage Holder
The three people behind this project—Vince, Emily, and Brian—are already at this stage, having had the lineage of Pragmatic Dharma transmitted to and through them. A lineage holder is someone who is a Sangha member and leader who continues their own journey, has the depth to hold people in deep retreat practice, and trains others to become teachers and lineage holders themselves.
If you look at the number of people engaged at each level, it forms a reverse pyramid. There are very few lineage holders because of the immense training, commitment, and intimate relational dimension required. Decades of training and teaching are typically required before someone can properly represent a lineage, but by creating clear and transparent stages of practice, leading up to there, we hope that the path is clear, and that you’ll take it as far as you’re moved to.
We want to support as many seekers and practitioners as possible. The best way to do that is to support the full range and depth of this training so more people can support others as they go.
💡 How to Get Involved
Right now we are open to welcoming new Pragmatic Dharma Sangha members into our community of deliberate practice. The low end membership fee is quite low ($29) and while we suggest $108/month, the average that people give can be seen here.
If you apply to the join the Pragmatic Dharma Sangha, and are accepted, you’ll be able to join live teaching events with us, as well as gain access to our growing library of mostly unreleased content.
We’re already doing Pragmatic Dharma Meet-Ups in Lisbon, Portugal and Asheville, North Carolina, and will announcing 10 or more new meet-up groups across North America & Europe.
Finally, if you’d like to take things deeper with this community, and are interested in taking your training deeper with this lineage, please clear your schedule for a 10-Day Pragmatic Dharma Retreat from 📅 January 2–11, 2027 in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina.