thisisameditator

[thisisameditator]

Chris Gagné

What is your practice? What techniques do you do? What traditions do you follow?

I follow Upasaka Culadasa’s “Mind Illuminated” practice. It is a shamatha-vipassana practice taught in a very westerner-friendly approach. Culadasa’s background as a meditator, neuroscientist, scholar of Buddhist texts, and college professor makes him an extraordinary teacher. I have also dabbled a bit with Zen, Tibetan Buddhism, and Goenka’s dry-vipassana traditions, but have settled on this one for now.

Tell me about a time when you knew this practice was real; a time when this practice carried over into your life in a way that was notable, significant, and, ideally, vulnerable.

I suffered from a deeply traumatic childhood. Meditation has helped me “purify” many of the emotions that come along with such a background. It has helped me focus. It also allows me to be more mindful of less-than-productive trains of thought so that I can simply choose to cease them. I don’t think I could do my job as an Agile Coach in Fortune 500 companies without the mindfulness and calm my meditation practice provides.

Who is Chris?

I am a meditator, teacher, and friend in San Francisco, CA. I am an Agile Coach as a hobby that happens to pay my bills. I help teams of software developers, testers, designers, and managers improve their happiness at work while dramatically improving their productivity. I am also in a meditation teacher-in-training program in the lineage of Upasaka Culadasa.

My fiancée and I offer two weekly dharma events at our home. The first is “Dogpatch Dharma”, a gathering of yogis and meditators from many different backgrounds. We listen to a diversity of recorded talks together ranging from Alan Watts to Jampa Tegchok Rinpoche and from Ram Dass to Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. The second is a Jonang Kalachakra practice.

[thisisameditator]

Michael Fogleman

What is your practice? What techniques do you do? What traditions do you follow?

I largely do observation-based practices. I have used my breath, tinnitus (also known as the nada), body scanning techniques, “Focus Out”, “Focus In”, pleasure in my body, pain in my body, and “Just Note Gone.”

Soryu Forall is my main teacher, although my practice has also been influenced by the teachers Shinzen Young, Edward Salim Michael, Upasaka Culadasa, and C G Mayya.

Tell me about a time when you knew this practice was real; a time when this practice carried over into your life in a way that was notable, significant, and, ideally, vulnerable.

I spoke to my grandmother on the phone three days or so before she passed. She was in pain; she couldn’t speak coherently; I wasn’t even sure if she could understand me. I had to be okay with that. I had to be okay with the fact that I couldn’t be there physically, that I could only make a brief phone call. I had to be okay with the likelihood that this would be the last time I spoke with her. I wanted her to know I loved her, that many people loved her, that she would be remembered. Somehow I knew I had to speak in very simple sentences, to repeat myself again and again, and to let my voice convey my love for her. Somehow that is what happened. Somehow that call gave her a little peace. And somehow I knew that my practice had prepared me for this call, which I could not possibly have imagined or prepared for consciously.

Who is Michael?

Michael is a resident at the Monastic Academy.

[thisisameditator]

Chris Adams

What is your practice? What techniques do you do? What traditions do you follow?

In general, my bread and butter technique is focus on "feel", using the sensations of the breath and body as the object of meditation. I use some variation of this technique for the majority of my sits. Sometimes I play around with other techniques, but I invariably come back to this one. The teachers and traditions that have had the greatest influence on my practice are Shinzen Young, Soryu Forall, S.N. Goenka, Thanissaro Bhikku, Culadasa, Junpo Roshi, Kenneth Folk, Gary Weber, Zen, Vipassana, and Advaita Vedanta.

Tell me about a time when you knew this practice was real; a time when this practice carried over into your life in a way that was notable, significant, and, ideally, vulnerable.

I recently got back from a vacation with my family in Iowa. As I was driving home, I was informed by HR at the school that I work for that my contract was not being renewed for the upcoming school year. It was surprising given that I had received good reviews from my boss and my peers, but not unexpected seeing how in the course of my time at the school we lost 2 principals and 3 teachers at a school of only 5, and how weird things seems to go on behind the administrative scenes. The weird thing is that when I heard the news, the first salient feeling was one of relief. Rather than go down the route of panic and self pity, I felt relief and some excitement about new opportunity opening up. Maybe I'll move to Colorado or Oregon! I don't have to worry about so much about my living situation! The biggest surprise is how little I took this news personally. In the past, I would just perseverate on why this happened, what did I do wrong? However, I feel good about the work I accomplished in the course of the year and the experience I gained as a result. I know I conduct myself with integrity and good intention. So there isn't much to perseverate on. (Perhaps that's a consequence/benefit of the practice of ethics or sila). In some ways, that call felt like a benevolent, divine intervention. I haven't been in love with my living situation, and the job was stressful, but I was able to frame it as a chance to get great experience. However, in my final days in Iowa I was experiencing a lot of dread and anxiety about returning to my uncomfortable living situation and preparing for work. But now I am freed from this and able to look around search for an opportunity that sings! And this time, when I'm looking for work, I feel reluctant to push myself to jump at the first job that presents, because I have a tendency to go with the flow and I might stick with that job longer than necessary. I want to be more patient and search for the thing that really sings. In the past I would be freaked out and have this negative story coursing through my head, and honestly, today, I feel pretty good, pretty upbeat. It's because, over time, if you can practice being nothing, having nothing, you are practicing being okay. So while conditionally things can be all over the place (and I have found life post-CML to be unusually, and suspiciously, turbulent) you can always fall back on the practice, the road to nowhere, a place where no conditions can torture you.

Who is Chris?

Until recently, Chris has worked as a school counselor in California. He trained at The Center for Mindful Learning. He was also featured in Chade-Meng Tan's recent book, Joy on Demand.

[thisisameditator]

Kris Coward

What is your practice? What techniques do you do? What traditions do you follow?

For formal sitting practice, I have a rotation of maintaining my posture, cultivating friendship, and mindful review. Until recently, I had been doing one sit a day, at no specific time of day, lasting between 10 and 30 minutes (depending on available time), and following along with one of the Sunday Sits posted on the Center for Mindful Learning's YouTube channel a little less often than once a week in lieu of my usual sit.

I've now changed to a 20 minute sit in the morning, and an evening sit before bed, lasting between 10 and 30 minutes, with Sunday Sits taken in addition to (rather than instead of) my routine sits. I've noticed an affinity for mindful review in the evening (when my memories of the period under review haven't yet been slept upon), and cultivating friendship in the morning (so that I can carry the friendship into the day with me). In light of this, my day to day rotation is now to hold these techniques to their usual time of day, replacing the morning sit with posture on one day, replacing the evening sit with posture on the next day, and omitting posture on the third day.

My timer that reminds me my sit is over, does so with a song that runs approximately two and a half minutes. I've made a habit of adding a little do nothing practice while this song plays.

Tell me about a time when you knew this practice was real; a time when this practice carried over into your life in a way that was notable, significant, and, ideally, vulnerable.

I had a pretty terrible period in my life not that long ago; during that time I lost a marriage and few friends, lost a considerable amount of money (mostly on legal fees for court cases -- yes plural -- that other people had initiated against me, and which were ultimately all decided in my favour), and lost a sense of my place in my community and in the world. As this particular set of troubles was winding down, I lost my job, and then my girlfriend (who I feel I should point out I met after filing for divorce).

All this was followed by a period of about four months which might be fair to call depression, and which I'm inclined to describe as emotional survival; I was clinging desparately to a hope that things would stop getting worse, so that I could start reassembling the remaining pieces of my life into something I could be happy living.

That period ended when a friend of mine was moving away to be a modern monastic at CML. Part of his going away party involved the option to participate in a guided retreat running approximately 6 hours. Although I'd not had any sort of regular practice for most of a decade, I still remembered meditation to be a thing that I like and value, and figured that participating in the retreat would at least help take the edge off my headspace at the time.

What I didn't expect, was that while practicing the third technique at that retreat, I'd collapse in laughter and drive out nearly two years of accumulated stress and depression in the process. (The technique in question was inquiry, and for some reason I latched on to the question "what's so funny" as a line of inquiry). At the end of the practice I could tell that a habit of feeling threatened had been broken, and felt that my personality could re-emerge from hiding and I could rediscover myself.

Who is Kris?

I have a PhD in mathematics, have lived on a sailboat for the past 12 years, and once rode a bicycle (alone) across Canada. I occasionally build mathematical sculptures, race my home, help with art projects at my local makerspace, generally get around by bicycle, hunt with my friends, and like to go mushroom picking with my daughter and mother. I work in cryptofinance/cryptoeconomics, and try to visit CML every few months or so.

[thisisameditator]

Dominik Jung

What is your practice? What techniques do you do? What traditions do you follow?

I'd say I have two types of practice which go together really well - a main practice and a bunch of support practices.

For most of my meditation career I have been using some form of Mahasi Sayadaw noting as my staple practice, as is very common in the western dharma movement. These days I practice mostly in the way Upasaka Culadasa maps out in "The Mind Illuminated". So that consists of a progression of steps that build mindfulness of the breath together with other side exercises, all rooted in a super elaborate and powerful theoretical framework which Culadasa maps out. Having that clear framework has made a lot of difference because it allows one to recognize subtleties to work on much quicker than normally. I always get super inspired by watching these athletes on Youtube, who use the same principle (deliberate practice) to get these insane levels of competence in their sport and I like to think that's what meditation does as well, just for one's mind.

In addition to the main practice, I've benefited tremendously by using some lines of development that go contrarily to my normal nature as a support practice. Being kind of the heady type, it's been great to do different types of body-based  practices, ie. Yoga, Reichian psychotherapy and Feldenkrais work. Also, I've had great effects recently by using direct inquiry and a Zen-type practice (ie. Shinzen Young's "Do Nothing" technique). It's a bit like having a toolbox to choose from, with different approaches for different situations.

Tell me about a time when you knew this practice was real; a time when this practice carried over into your life in a way that was notable, significant, and, ideally, vulnerable.

It seems hard to pick one big example, it's more that I keep noticing it in little things all the time. For example not getting annoyed in a cashier line at the supermarket or being way more relaxed when it comes to doing something unfamiliar.  I've also noticed that my empathy has gotten way better, which defuses so many situations that might otherwise have gone needlessly awry. The ratio of people I get along with or enjoy spending time with has gone way up as well.

Also, I sometimes notice what Shinzen Young calls "deepening fulfillment": simple things become actually beautiful and interesting, I.e. clouds, anthills or whatever. Simple pleasures become really good, like a cup of coffee in the sun or riding a bike. I've also noticed that aesthetics have become much more important to me, like having a nice room etc.

Who is Dominik?

Good question ;-)

I've been pretty academic for most of my life. I enjoy learning a lot and got extremely fascinated with all sorts of systems modeling and simulation methodologies. I've also been pretty immersed in self-development ideas for a long time which grew into an interest in deeper philosophy.

I was enrolled in a PhD program for systems simulation for a year but saw little value in it, as most of the papers go on the shelf and most people in academia seemed like they didn't have it together.

Right now I am at the Center for Mindful Learning, a Zen-influenced monastery, community, and NGO, to explore ways to joyfully serve with these skills.

[thisisameditator]

Andrea O’Connor

What is your practice? What techniques do you do? What traditions do you follow?

Right now, I try to practice from 8:30-9 pm and from 6 to 6:30 am each day. And two community sits each week and workshops occasionally. Plus 3 to 4 week-long retreats a year. I use lots of techniques. Recently, I focus attention on my breath in my belly and maintain awareness of what's happening inside and outside my body. When distractions interrupt my focus, I usually realize it before I lose the focus and can investigate where the distraction came from in awareness. I've discovered the cessation of self talk and find that very relaxing. I also like Tonglen practice and the Four Immeasurables and various other contemplative/visualization techniques. I've studied in a few traditions and right now am active with the Center for Mindful Learning in Johnson, VT and enjoy the teachings of Soryu Forall and Shinzen Young. I'm reading Culadasa's "The Mind Illuminated" and learning a lot from that.

Tell me about a time when you knew this practice was real; a time when this practice carried over into your life in a way that was notable, significant, and, ideally, vulnerable.

I've always known the practice was real from the time I was a child and used to go into a mindful state while in nature sitting in a tree or laying in a meadow. It impacts my life in real ways everyday. Most recently, this morning, I woke up with doubt and anxiety about a project I'm working on. I decided to "change my mind." I began to breathe and focus on the moment and soon spaciousness opened up. I rose and took my dog for a walk amazed at the beauty in the world and the openness of my mind and the landscape. Anxiety and doubt about my project were gone and I have been working happily at it over this morning. Every breath is proof this practice is real.

Who is Andrea?

I teach yoga at a studio that my husband owns and founded. I like to write and am currently working on two books and a blog called the N'Lightened Moment. I'm a volunteer mindfulness leader in the community. I cook, garden, read and sail on Lake Champlain or the ocean when I get the chance.

Before I lived this relaxed life, I was a stressed out, unhealthy marketing manager who worked 60 hours a week, drank wine every night and had a vague dissatisfaction with life. Yoga and mindfulness make life a fascinating adventure, full of fun and challenge.

[thisisameditator]

Daniel Thorson

What is your practice? What techniques do you do? What traditions do you follow?

I usually start off getting concentrated by following the breath at my nostrils, then I’ll move to a noting practice (making a single note for whatever is arising in my experience), if that is grooving along nicely I’ll switch to inquiry; asking the question “who feels?” or “who hears?” or whatever sense experience is arising (“who is angry?”, “who is curious?”, “who wants to know?”).

Recently I’ve also been exploring more deeply a movement practice at a center called ‘The Boulder Movement Collective’. I find that it’s very difficult to engage in needless self-conscious rumination when you’re trying to nail a handstand.

In terms of traditions I’m mostly inspired by Mahasi Sayadaw, Soryu Forall, Adyashanti, and Daniel Ingram.

Tell me about a time when you knew this practice was real; a time when this practice carried over into your life in a way that was notable, significant, and, ideally, vulnerable.

The first thing that comes to mind is a recent experience I had when a woman I'm dating left me. I was moving to Boulder and she had driven across the country to help me settle. She spent a few days with me in my new home but soon had to leave and return to New York (where she currently lives).

When she left I felt great sadness and pain. It felt like a part of me had been amputated. By engaging with the experience contemplatively I was able to go underneath the story (of insecurity, fear, and self-pity) and have a direct experience of loss. In doing so the loss and sadness became sweet and tender, a visceral reminder that I’m alive and have a loving heart. What may have been a purely painful experience was transformed into something beautiful, intimate, and edifying. 

Who is Daniel?

Daniel Thorson is an educator, geek, and activist.

In previous incarnations Daniel has organized with Occupy Wall Street in NYC; worked at a company called Buddhist Geeks (it’s what it sounds like); founded a family co-op; helped start Boulder Flood Relief in the aftermath of the September 2013 floods (which went on to become an award winning non-profit); founded a mindfulness education company; lived at a Modern Monastery in Vermont; and spent over 10,000 (awful, wonderful) hours in formal meditation practice.

Currently Daniel works for PowerUp Productions, a creative agency that empowers conscious creatives to build beautiful things. He lives in Boulder, CO in a cooperative house with fourteen humans, four cats, and two dogs.

[thisisameditator]

Toby Sola

What is your practice? What techniques do you do? What traditions do you follow?

See, Hear, Feel. Just feel. Extension of out breath. Yoga. 

Tell me about a time when you knew this practice was real; a time when this practice carried over into your life in a way that was notable, significant, and, ideally, vulnerable.

Throughout my childhood, I would enter the beautiful woods that surround my rural Vermont home as if I was entering a cathedral. Each step was a blessing, the wind sung hymns, sunsets appeared as stain glass, maple trees resembled gothic marble pillars, and warm gusts enveloped me in prayer shawls. Sitting or laying down in the leaves and simply watching, listening, and feeling my surroundings was a favorite part of the service. I would look up into the trees as if I was looking at an impressionist painting, enjoy the feeling of wind against my skin as if I was getting a massage, and I would listen to the birds as if they were playing Mozart.

One night, as one of the first snows of the winter fell, I bundled up and set out to explore my cathedral. As I was feeling calm, I decided to lie in the freshly fallen snow and enjoy the magical evening. As I lay there, snowflakes began pelting my face and I became quite perturbed by the tickly, itchy sensations that such bombardment produced. I had a strong urge to wipe my face and stand up (a position that would, at least, reduce the number of snowflakes assaulting my face). I then remembered one of Tom Brown Jr.'s stories.

Tom teaches workshops on Native American survival skills, awareness, and tracking at his school in New Jersey and is arguably the best tracker alive today (police often recruit him to find missing children and he's known for being able to track a mouse across bare rock). Tom and his childhood friend, Rick honed their skills under the tutelage of Grandfather, an Apache medicine man and scout. One day, during a similarly snowy day in the Pine Barrens, Grandfather was teaching Tom and Rick about the importance of being open to discomfort (however, as Grandfather was an avid coyote teacher, Tom and Rick knew nothing of his intention). All they knew was that Grandfather had them floating down a forest stream in the middle of a New Jersey winter. While they compulsively shivered, Grandfather suggested that they open up to the cold, to not resist it, but instead, to let it flow throughout their bodies as divine breath. Tom and Rick desperately tried to achieve such a shift in perspective and eventually succeeded. The cold began caressing their beings and shivers ceased.

With this story in mind, I was determined to achieve a similar shift in perspective with regard to these damned snowflakes. I locked my body into position, not allowing even a flinch of movement. I took deep breaths in order to 'pump my self up' and help myself survive the tickling that accompanied the falling flakes. After realizing that I had sustained this for about 30 seconds, I became more confident in my ability to persevere, which allowed me to mildly relax. I began to think of Grandfather's teaching and I attempted to engage a calm and sincere openness. Every once in a while, a snowflake wouldn't cause much of a tickling sensation and this further increased conviction. Eventually, the itching sensations that accompanied the pelting faded into the background and I was left with a wild energetic face kneading. Soon, even this sensation grew dim, and I began to feel fingers of my awareness stretch out into the woods around me. The whole of the woods seemed as much a part of my being as my thoughts and feelings. I could sense the movement of limbs, winds, and water that were obviously beyond the scope my physical senses. Merging, oneness.

As I arose from the snow that evening I continued to feel viscerally connected to my surroundings. I wasn't standing in 'the woods,' I was standing in an overflowing emptiness of spirit. When a tree limb swayed during gusts of wind, I was swaying. When the moon shone on the freshly fallen snow, I was sparkling. A lone thought bounced around a vacuous consciousness, "the spirit-that-moves-in-all-things is no fairytale."

Thank you oh glorious snowflakes for helping me to merge with my surroundings. This experience radically transformed my understanding of self and world and has thus greatly influenced my life's trajectory in countless ways.

Who is Toby?

With 02 Mobile Insight (a social enterprise), Toby designs products that accelerate global engagement with practices that lead to greater fulfillment and less suffering.

Toby believes that the pursuits of mindfulness and social entrepreneurship mutually support one another and such a combination of methodologies may be powerful enough to change the course of human history. At least this is his best bet. Accordingly, Toby feels honored to engage in this exciting work. As a child, Toby's interest in mindfulness began with Yom Kippur fasting, wood wandering, and shamanic sweat lodges. In 2011, Toby met Shinzen Young and Soryu Forall and began practicing, teaching, and researching mindfulness more seriously. As a practitioner, he likes mining his emotional body sensations as a source of wisdom and using his physical senses to - like a ninja - be hyper aware of his surroundings. As a teacher, Toby specializes in Self Actualization and working with people who suffer from anxiety and chronic pain. Toby has taught mindfulness in a variety of settings including: in-person and phone-based retreats, after school programs, and college campuses.

While at Vassar College, Toby conducted a Social Studies research project entitled, Reflection, Reproduction, and Challenging at the Brooklyn Zen Center and a Cognitive Science research project entitled, Breath, Self, and World: Pioneering Meditation Pedagogy.

Toby's interest in social entrepreneurship began with an 18-month business model development internship at the Center for Mindful Learning in Johnson, VT. In this position, Toby designed a scalable business model to support a modern monastery/start-up accelerator.