Teaching Meditation

Upali interviews Boaz about the relational meditation practices he's been doing, including relational qi gong.  Their conversation then pivots to the role Boaz sees meditation practice holding in healing and altering societies.  Boaz will be speaking at a conference Dec 5 - 7, 2025, and you can find more information at this link.  Boaz's newest paper is over here.Support the show

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.Support the show

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!"Support the show

Stephen 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 show

Upali 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 show