Teaching Meditation – Details, episodes & analysis

Marianne Bentzen is a psychotherapist and trainer in neuroaffective development psychology.  She is the author of a number of books including Neuroaffective Meditation: A Practical Guide to Lifelong Brain Development, Emotional Growth, and Healing Trauma.  Marianne talks about her path to becoming a meditation teacher as a psychotherapist and how to connect with heartfulness and playfulness in teaching.  She also defines trauma, explains its parallels with deep meditative states, and points toward how support might begin for practitioners with trauma.  

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Dr. Daniel Ingram is a retired emergency medicine doctor who is the author of two versions of the book Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha.   His current projects are the Emergent Phenomenology Research Consortium and a charity called the Emergence Benefactors.  Daniel discusses the way in which he became a dharma teacher, where he actually began by working with the most advanced practitioners, and he discusses a number of areas in which he has "stepped on minefields" and created controversy.  

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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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Don and Patty, both dharma teachers, run the Wellbeing Retreat Center in Tazewell, Tennessee.   This special episode focuses, rather than on the usual topic of teaching meditation, on how to start and manage a meditation retreat center.

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Shaila Catherine is the founder of Insight Meditation South Bay, a meditation group in Silicon Valley, and also Bodhi Courses, an online Buddhist classroom. She has been practicing meditation since 1980, with more than nine years of accumulated silent retreat experience. She has taught since 1996 in the USA, and internationally.   She completed a one-year intensive meditation retreat with the focus on concentration and jhana, and authored Focused and Fearless: A Meditator’s Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity. Shaila practiced under the guidance of Venerable Pa-Auk Sayadaw from 2006-2015, and authored Wisdom Wide and Deep: A Practical Handbook for Mastering Jhana and Vipassana to help make this traditional approach to meditative training accessible to western practitioners.

In this episode, Shaila talks about the relationship betwen jhana and insight, and achieving full liberation through practice.

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Boaz Feldman talks with Upali from a multi-year meditation retreat and shares his personal journey of becoming a monk, returning to lay life, and becoming a psychologist.  Boaz and Upali talk about the challenges and benefits of integrating ancient tradition in a modern world, and Boaz presents a framework that formulates that possibilty.  To learn more about Boaz, please check out his website: http://boazfeldman.com/, and  you can also learn more about Neurosystemics at  neurosystemics.org .

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Dr. Andrew Holecek covers a lot of ground, from describing finding his niche in sleep and dream meditation, to doing a three-year retreat, and his thoughts on the frequent scandals among dharma teachers.  Learn more about Andrew at www.andrewholecek.com.

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This episode touches on Christian practice, Adyashanti's lineage of Zen, and how to teach meditation from more of a non-doing, already-there perspective, rather than a technique-based one.

Dorothy Hunt is the founder of the San Francisco Center for Meditation and Psychotherapy, and serves as Spiritual Director and President of Moon Mountain Sangha, Inc., a California non-profit religious corporation. Dorothy currently offers meditation and satsang gatherings, awakening groups, weekend retreat days, and longer residential retreats.  Following a series of ever-deepening realizations, Dorothy was invited by her spiritual teacher, Adyashanti, to teach within his lineage. While Adyashanti was trained in the Zen tradition, Dorothy’s spiritual path led from Mother Teresa of Calcutta to the Advaita teachers, Ramana Maharshi and Ramesh Balsekar, and eventually to Adyashanti. Each one of her teachers appeared to her totally unexpectedly, yet profoundly.

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Shinzen Young is an American mindfulness teacher and neuroscience research consultant.

His systematic approach to categorizing, adapting and teaching meditation, known as Unified Mindfulness, has resulted in collaborations with Harvard Medical School, Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Vermont in the bourgeoning field of contemplative neuroscience.

Shinzen’s interest in Asia began at the age of 14 when he decided to attend Japanese ethnic school in his native city of Los Angeles.

Learn more at shinzen.org.

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Upali interviews Stephen Batchelor,  a contemporary Buddhist teacher and writer, a former monk best known for his secular or agnostic approach to Buddhism.  They talk about teaching Dharma (vs simply teaching meditation), finding authority through authorship, and plant medicine. Stephen teaches meditation around the world, and he is the author of such well-known books as Buddhism Without Beliefs, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist, After Buddhism, and most recently The Art of Solitude.  You can learn more about Stephen at https://www.stephenbatchelor.org/

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