Teaching Meditation – Details, episodes & analysis

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Professor Steven Haberlin is a professor at the University of Central Florida.  In this episode, you'll hear him talk about teaching small amounts of meditation to very large amounts of people.  Steven tells us about the benefits of this style of teaching, as well as what risks there are.  The episode then focuses on research he's been doing on technological adjuncts to meditation and the use of meditation apps.  The research forms part of his new book, Meta-Meditation for Mental Health: How Neuroscience, Virtual Reality, and AI are Changing Practice and How You Can Benefit.

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Upali interviews Anusheh, who began practicing The Mind Illuminated in order to improve her anxiety.  While it did help, it was a more convoluted path than she had been expecting.  One topic she and Upali talk about is the idea that striving is actually helpful, in that it causes you to burn out enough that you stop doing it, which is the route to good practice.  Anusheh also talks about the transition from lusting after enlightenment -- "future happiness" -- with the focusing on what happiness could look like in the present moment.  

"Rejecting your experience right now takes a lot of energy!"

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Vince Horn, meditation teacher and co-founder of Buddhist Geeks, talks with Upali about his path of transmission and training in Dharma Teaching.  He also explores transparency in Dana, Dharma and Sangha in the world of Web 3.0, and the power of social meditative techniques aka Multiplayer Meditation.  

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Shaila Catherine rejoins us on the program.  We discuss several ancient practices, including the asubha practice (sometimes called "foulness of the body") and what the Buddha calls "crushing mind with mind," and how these practices do and don't work for modern students.  Shaila also describes her own process for finding a teacher once one is already a teacher.  She has just written a new book called Beyond Distraction: Five Practical Ways to Focus the Mind, so our conversation veers as well into helping students who are struggling with distracted minds.

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Lopön Chandra Easton is a Westerner who grew up in the Vajrayana Buddhist tradition.  She did nine years of preparatory (ngondro) practices and spent 5 - 10 years training to be a teacher.  She is a lineage holder under Lama Tsultrim  Allione, author of the book Feeding Your Demons.  She is currently on the Tara Mandala Board of Directors and the Tara Mandala Bay Area coordinating committee, through which she teaches and organizes events in the Bay Area.  To learn about Chandra and connect with her, head to chandraeaston.com.

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Henrik Norberg is a celibate, non-monastic teacher of meditation retreats, often in caves in Southeast Arizona.  Hear him and Upali talk about the difference between Eastern and Western conceptualizations of stream entry, Henrik's view that Western Buddhism hyperfocuses on meditation, and what Henrik's own path looks like, which he said it primarily morality practice.

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Australian teacher Kynan Tan, PhD only recently began teaching meditation and was quickly able to leave his regular job and become a fulltime teacher.  In this interview, you'll hear how he prepared himself to teach, how he gets continuing education and supervision as a new teacher, and what steps he thinks allowed him to attract so many students in a short time.  You can learn more about Kynan and contact him at https://kynanmeditation.net/

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Vidyamala Burch is the founder of Breathworks, has a teacher training program with over 600 alumni, has been teaching mindfulness for pain for many decades, and has been voted one of the most influential disabled people in the United Kingdom.  Hear Vidyamala's story of growing up in New Zealand, moving full-time into a retreat center, and starting and steering Breathworks.  She'll discuss how to keep the "heart" in an organization as it grows and how to receive feedback on teachers and colleagues.

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Mukti is a teacher in a nondual lineage.  She received her authorization to teach from Adyashanti, her husband.  You can learn more about Mukti over here.

Mukti’s teachings invite attunement to the act of being and to the heart of awareness. Such attunement can awaken Spirit to reveal Itself as your essential self and as the essence of all of life. This revelation is known as Self-realization, and is the birth of conscious Spirit made manifest, known as embodiment.Her teaching methods for nurturing realization and embodiment are founded in meditation, self-inquiry, and body awareness, and encourage connecting with one’s self as an expression of all of life.

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Upali talks about teaching intro courses vs advanced students, coping with the unfairness of the world, working with students' emotional wellbeing, and how to escape Garfunkel syndrome.

Upasaka Upali is a Dharma teacher who aims to demystify meditation, provide tangible instruction, and create a rewarding experience for practitioners. Upali received transmission in a lineage that can be traced back to the Buddha through Namgyal Rinpoche (Ananda Bodhi), and he took his Upasaka vows in 2015. He has a degree from St. Olaf College and has studied Dharma and meditation with Tucker Peck, Ph.D. and Upasaka Culadasa. He was a founding member of the Open Dharma Foundation and also served as its founding Executive Director. He is the co-host of this podcast, as you assured know since you're listening to it.   You can learn more or contact him at upalimeditation.com.

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