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Jonathan Foust

Jonathan Foust

Senior teacher at the Insight Meditation Community of Washington and co-founder of the Meditation Teacher Training Institute, Jonathan Foust share weekly talks, guided meditations and inquiries that explore how to cultivate an awakened heart and mind.

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  • 31 episodes
  • Avg 46 min
  • English

Episodes 31

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  • March 28 · 33 min

    The Eightfold Path, Part 6: How to Do without Overdoing

    This talk explores Right Effort as one of the most misunderstood elements of the Eightfold Path—revealing how much of our suffering comes not from a lack of effort, but from pushing, striving, and forcing ourselves in ways that create inner violence. Drawing on classical Buddhist teachings and everyday experience, the talk reframes effort as a form of care rather than willpower, inviting a wiser relationship to energy, discipline, and motivation in meditation and daily life. You'll learn how to recognize when effort has tipped into strain, how to stop feeding unhelpful mental patterns, and how to cultivate wholesome qualities without burnout or self-judgment. The talk offers practical guidance for sustaining practice with steadiness and ease, helping you apply energy in ways that support clarity, compassion, and long-term resilience—on and off the cushion.

  • March 28 · 47 min

    Beyond the Witness: From Watching to Being [archive talk]

    This talk explores the power of self-observation and what lies beyond the sense of self. You'll learn how the witness can free you from the tyranny of the mind and your reactivity as well as what can happen when you explore being aware of the witness and what lies beyond.

  • February 13 · 31 min

    The Eightfold Path, Part 5: How to Make a Living without Selling Your Soul

    This talk explores Right Livelihood as a living inquiry rather than a rigid moral rule, asking how we can earn a living without gradually betraying our values, vitality, or sense of dignity. Grounded in the Buddha's teachings and everyday work life, the talk examines the ethical foundation of do no harm, the importance of inner congruence between what we do and what we feel in our bodies, and the often-overlooked relational impact of our work—how it shapes our patience, speech, and capacity for care. Rather than idealizing purity, the talk brings a grounded, compassionate lens to the real tensions people face around money, responsibility, and meaning. You'll learn how to recognize subtle ways work can create inner fragmentation, how to listen to bodily signals and conscience as guides to integrity, and how to assess whether your livelihood is making you more humane or more armored. The talk also offers a wise, practical approach to compromise—showing how to live in the world as it is without collapsing into cynicism or self-betrayal, and how to take small, sane steps toward a livelihood that supports both survival and awakening.

  • February 5 · 32 min

    Listening as Spiritual Practice Why Unguarded Attention Is the Greatest Gift

    This talk explores listening as a radical act of compassion at moments of loss, when words often rush in to ease our own discomfort rather than meet another's pain. We examine how common responses to grief—reassurance, advice, spiritual framing, or positivity—can unintentionally distance us, and how the impulse to fix subtly reinforces separation. Drawing on mindfulness and embodied awareness, the talk invites a shift from doing something helpful to being with what is most tender and real. You'll learn how to recognize the fixing reflex as it arises, listen from the body rather than the mind, and rest in not-knowing without withdrawing or collapsing. Through practical guidance and reflection, you'll discover how simple, grounded presence communicates safety, dignity, and care—offering a form of support that does not try to resolve grief, but allows it to unfold and be held with wisdom and compassion.

  • February 5 · 1 hr 49 min

    How to Surf the Waves of Uncertainty, Part 2: Practices for Cultivating Steadiness [archive talk]

    More on how to keep you keel in the water when navigating uncertainty. You'll learn some practical strategies for finding 'refuge,' a place of presence, particularly accessing Wisdom - clear seeing, Compassion - a heart that can hold it all, Presence - the space of awareness itself, and Skillful Action - strategies for staying deeply present in the midst of change.

  • January 9 · 52 min

    What Is Your North Star? Questions That Awaken Wise Intention

    This talk explores wise intention as a living, moment-to-moment inquiry rather than a fixed decision or self-improvement project. Drawing from the Buddhist understanding of Right Intention, it reframes intention as an embodied process of noticing what genuinely supports clarity and ease, honestly recognizing what leads to contraction, and allowing the heart to recalibrate without judgment. The emphasis is on alignment over striving, and on learning directly from lived experience. You'll learn how to evaluate your life and practice through clear cause-and-effect, recognize when effort is actually creating more struggle, and make mindful course corrections that are kind, practical, and sustainable. The talk offers simple reflections and practices to help you listen beneath habit and preference, so you can open to what most deeply calls and let wise intention guide your actions with greater trust, coherence, and care.

  • Dec 25, 2025 · 31 min

    Seeing Clearly: Insight and the Path of Liberation

    This talk explores the liberating power of clear seeing — vipassanā, or insight — the capacity to recognize things as they truly are rather than as we wish them to be. Through the practice of mindful attention, we begin to see through the illusions that shape our experience: the illusion that things are solid, that the self is fixed, that craving can bring satisfaction, and that suffering is personal. Each moment of genuine insight loosens the grip of confusion and reveals the luminous awareness that is already free. You'll learn how insight unfolds through the deep investigation of perception, self, desire, and suffering; how mindfulness and compassion work together to transform pain into wisdom; and how to bring these realizations into the immediacy of daily life. Through stories, reflection, and direct practice, you'll discover how to live from the natural clarity that sees through delusion and rests in the heart of liberation.

  • Dec 21, 2025 · 44 min

    Four Phrases That Heal: Loving the Unlovable [archive talk]

    This talk explores how to consciously direct the inner process of healing and release. Drawing on the classic teachings of Ho'oponopono, it introduces four phrases that guide your attention to: • Taking responsibility for your inner experience • Attuning to the process of release • Reflecting on gratitude and the opportunity to grow • Resting in loving awareness

Showing 21–31 of 31 episodes