{"podcast":{"title":"Dharma Talks and Sangha Shares","slug":"dharma-talks-and-sangha-shares-7730357","podcast_index_feed_id":7730357,"rss_url":"https://media.rss.com/insight-meditation-houston/feed.xml","website_url":"https://rss.com/podcasts/insight-meditation-houston","image_url":"https://media.rss.com/insight-meditation-houston/20260303_070337_71d115ffd6a81264c6f3ebc0ce8ffde2.jpg","author":"Insight Meditation Houston","episode_count":15,"summary":"What does it mean to truly wake up — not someday, but in this very life? Insight Meditation Houston (\"IMH\") invites you to find out. Rooted in 2,500 years of Vipassana tradition and planted in Houston's spiritual community since 1980, this podcast brings you the liberating teachings of the Buddha — accessible, grounded, and alive for modern practitioners. Each episode can offer guided meditations, Dharma talks, and teachings drawn from the ancient path of insight meditation: the careful, compassionate observation of breath, thought, and emotion that slowly — and then suddenly — changes everything. Whether you're sitting for the first time or deepening a lifelong practice, you'll find here a genuine refuge. Not a performance, not a philosophy debate — just sincere companions on the path, committed to mindfulness, ethical living, and the wisdom that sets the heart free. Join a community that has been quietly, persistently waking up together for over four decades — and discover what it means to meet your own life with presence, clarity, and compassion. All backgrounds welcome. No experience necessary. Just bring yourself. Visit us at our website: insighthouston.org","last_synced_at":"2026-06-17T10:19:49.005023+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/dharma-talks-and-sangha-shares-7730357"},"episode":{"title":"Reincarnation Part 1","slug":"reincarnation-part-1","published_at":"2026-03-22T20:26:26+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/dharma-talks-and-sangha-shares-7730357/reincarnation-part-1","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/dharma-talks-and-sangha-shares-7730357","url":"https://rss.com/podcasts/insight-meditation-houston/2649905","audio_url":"https://content.rss.com/episodes/376050/2649905/insight-meditation-houston/2026_03_22_20_24_32_fde716cf-7327-43ba-9807-0e975c980a55.mp3","summary":"Do our lives continue after death — and is there any real evidence for it? In this first of a two-part sangha share, Mark Ryan takes look at reincarnation, tracing its presence across cultures from ancient Greek philosophy and early Christianity to Hinduism, Buddhism, and indigenous traditions worldwide. Drawing on his background facilitating Holotropic Breathwork, Mark shares compelling case stories — including one man whose vivid visions of a 16th-century Irish fortress turned out to match an obscure historical battle he had never knowingly encountered. He also explores the work of psychiatrist Brian Weiss, whose skepticism about past lives was overturned by his own clinical experience with a patient whose symptoms vanished after recalling apparent past-life traumas under hypnosis. Mark doesn't ask us to believe — he simply presents the evidence, acknowledges the alternative explanations, and lets us sit with the question. About Mark Ryan Mark Ryan holds a Ph.D. from Yale University, where he was on the faculty and a dean of students for 21 years. Subsequently, he was professor and Dean of the Colleges at the Universidad de las Américas in Puebla, Mexico. His writings on transpersonal matters include the book A Different Dimension: Reflections on the History of Transpersonal Thought and several articles in The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology.","meta_description":"Do our lives continue after death — and is there any real evidence for it? In this first of a two-part sangha share, Mark Ryan takes look at reincarnation…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1693,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/dharma-talks-and-sangha-shares-7730357/episodes/reincarnation-part-1/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/dharma-talks-and-sangha-shares-7730357/reincarnation-part-1.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}