Shows
Teaching MeditationStephen Zerfas: Making the Jhanas AccessibleStephen Zerfas, founder of the Jhana startup Jhourney (get it?), covers a wide range of topics in today's interview. He and Tucker talk about the relationship of the jhanas to the rest of the path, how Stephen has succeeded in getting so much publicity, and how the larger Dharma community has responded to a tech startup teaching meditation retreats.Support the show2025-06-2753 minTeaching MeditationLearning Meditation: Yuri. Using Meditation to Cope with WarUpali interviews Yuri, a Ukranian-British meditator. Yuri talks about how difficult his first retreat was, and how permanently his life changed following this. He then goes into how much better he became as a father as a result of his meditation practice. Later, Upali asks Yuri about what it was like when his country was attacked while his family was still there, and what impact his practice had on his ability to cope with this.Support the show2025-06-131h 10Teaching MeditationDr. Tucker Peck: Freedom is the Opposite of CommunityUpali interviews Tucker in this episode. In a wide-ranging conversation, they touch on:Many of us look for self esteem to pretty much everyone we meet, or to no one at all, rather than in a sane place.Doing what you'd like to do, and being in community, are opposite stances. How do we balance these?Tucker talks about Sanity & Sainthood, both the name of his book and what he sees as the two goals of dharma practice and psychotherapy. This is distinguished from the point of practice being to get and keep an awesome feeling.S...2025-05-3138 minTeaching MeditationLearning Meditation: Kacee. Dealing with Overwhelm in MeditationKacee is the first in a series Upali will do with guests who are longtime students, rather than teachers, of meditation. Kacee talks about a number of changes over her years as a practitioner, including her view of what to do when practice makes you feel worse, her view on integrating parts work into her meditation practice, and she deals with the inner critic.Support the show2025-05-1451 minTeaching MeditationNorth Burn: Spending 20 Years on RetreatDharma teacher North Burn has been on a meditation retreat for most of the last twenty years. He teaches a 3-month retreat each spring in California. Tucker talks with North about choosing a monastic life rather than dating, marriage, and a career. North opens up about his relationship with his own teacher, including a period where their relationship was temporarily severed, and what this was like for him.For more information about North, head to https://boundlessness.org/ or contact team@boundless.org.Support the show2025-04-2554 minTeaching MeditationMarianne Bentzen: Intimacy and Playfulness; Trauma and ResourceMarianne 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. Support the show2023-03-291h 15Teaching MeditationDr. Daniel Ingram: Managing Controversy in Dharma CirclesDr. 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. Support the show2023-03-1357 minTeaching MeditationJulianna Raye: The Unified Mindfulness Teacher Training ProgramGuest Julianna Raye joins Tucker to describe the Unified Mindfulness teacher training system. This is the second in our series on some of the larger teacher training programs; Vidyamala Burch's episode was the first.Support the show2023-02-061h 04Teaching MeditationDharma 3.0 and Multiplayer Meditation with Vince HornVince 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. Support the show2022-08-3059 minTeaching MeditationShaila Catherine: When Students Get DistractedShaila 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.Support the show2022-08-091h 03Teaching MeditationLopon Chandra Easton: 10 years of Vajrayana Training, and Feeding Your DemonsLopön 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.Support the show2022-04-091h 13Teaching MeditationHenrik Norberg: Religious Buddhism, or, Teaching Retreats in CavesHenrik 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.Support the show2022-03-2750 minTeaching MeditationKynan Tan: Success As a New and Fulltime Meditation TeacherAustralian 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/Support the show2022-03-0436 minTeaching MeditationVidyamala Burch: Growing a Dharma Org Without Losing The HeartVidyamala 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.Support the show2022-02-1848 minTeaching MeditationMukti: Teaching and EmbodimentMukti 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 enco...2022-02-081h 00Teaching MeditationUpasaka Upali: I Can't Remember How Many Intro Classes I've TaughtUpali 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...2021-06-0353 minTeaching MeditationDon & Patty: How to Run a Retreat CenterDon 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.Support the show2021-05-1355 minTeaching MeditationShaila Catherine: Teaching Towards Full LiberationShaila 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 Han...2021-04-271h 03Teaching MeditationBoaz Feldman: Freedom and FulfillmentBoaz 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 . Support the show2021-04-151h 04Teaching MeditationDr. Andrew Holecek: Finding Your NicheDr. 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.Support the show2021-03-291h 03Teaching MeditationDorothy Hunt: How Do We Teach The Ineffable?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 i...2021-03-171h 00Teaching MeditationShinzen Young: The Greatest Dignity Is Absolute HumilityShinzen 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.Support the show2021-03-0135 minTeaching MeditationStephen Batchelor: Teaching Dharma vs Teaching MeditationUpali 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/Support the show2021-02-151h 00Teaching MeditationStephanie Nash: Building Your Own FollowingTucker interviews Stephanie Nash. Stephanie has a psychology degree from Duke University and a Masters from Yale University. In addition to her career as an actress, Stephanie has had the privilege of working closely with Shinzen Young and has been a facilitator with Vipassana Support International since 1999, teaching retreats. In addition to a specialization in mindful eating, Stephanie has written several influential guides, including her well-known guide to meditation posture. You can reach Stephanie over here.Support the show2021-02-021h 00Teaching MeditationDr. Tucker Peck: Coping with Imposter SyndromeUpali interviews Tucker. Dr. Tucker Peck is a meditation teacher and clinical psychologist whose specialties include working with advanced meditators and using meditation to help those suffering from psychological disorders.Tucker began formal training in meditation in 2005 and has studied with Sharon Salzberg of the Insight Meditation Society and Upasaka Culadasa.Tucker received his undergraduate degree in Psychology from Brown University, and he received his Masters and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the College of Science at the University of Arizona. Tucker is a published author on the scientific study of meditation, focusing on h...2021-02-0252 minTeaching MeditationJeremy Graves: Can You Be A Teacher And A Normal Person?Upali interviews Jeremy Graves. Jeremy is a clinical psychologist-in-training in Berkeley, CA, as well as co-author of the bestselling meditation guide The Mind Illuminated. He's also an editor and contributor for a forthcoming book on Mahasi-style insight meditation. Over the past 15 years, he's practiced with many experienced monastics and well-known lay teachers in both the Theravada and Mahayana Buddhist traditions. He has spent a total of over two years in silent retreat. He has taught classes and retreats at venues such as Amazon, Shambhala Mountain Center in Colorado, Inner Way LA, eSangha, Sit-Heads Meditation Club...2021-02-021h 09Teaching MeditationJessica Graham: Sex, Money, and Teaching MeditationTucker interviews Jessica Graham. Jessica is a meditation teacher, sex, relationship, and spiritual guide for couples and individuals, international speaker, and author of Good Sex: Getting Off Without Checking Out, which has been translated into several languages, and is a best seller in the Netherlands. She is also a contributing editor of the popular meditation blog, Deconstructing Yourself, and is certified in Grief Recovery coaching. Jessica can be found on many apps including; Simple Habit, Wise@Work, Emjoy, Breethe, and Sanity & Self. Jessica has offered workshops at various centers internationally, including Esalen Institute. She has been interviewed/quoted for s...2021-02-0250 minTeaching MeditationMichael Taft: How Not To Become GuruTucker interviews Michael Taft. Michael is a maverick meditation teacher, bestselling author, and podcaster. As a mindfulness coach, he specializes in secular, science-based mindfulness training in retreats, groups, corporate settings, and one-on-one sessions. Michael is the author of several books, including the bestselling The Mindful Geek, Nondualism: A Brief History of a Timeless Concept, and Ego (which he co-authored), as well as the editor of such books as Hardwiring Happiness by Rick Hanson and The Science of Enlightenment by Shinzen Young.He has often taught meditation at Google, worked on curriculum development for SIYLI, and is currently c...2021-02-0250 minTeaching MeditationIntroduction to the podcast, with Tucker, Upali, and Shinzen YoungA short episode where Tucker, Upali and Shinzen explain what the podcast will be about.Support the show2021-02-0214 min
Meditation Mind PodcastWhat is The Mind Illuminated? - Upasaka UpaliToday I talk with Upasaka Upali, who is a meditation teacher and currently studies with Upasaka Culadasa. He studied meditation first with Tucker Peck, Ph.D. and currently studies with John Yates, Ph.D. (Upasaka Culadasa). He lives in the Southeastern United States where he teaches meditation locally and over video chat. We talk about his experiences and practice and what exactly 'The Mind Illuminated' is.Learn more about Upali here: https://upalimeditation.com/2019-03-0552 min