Religion & SpiritualityBuddhismEducation

Teaching Meditation

Upasaka Upali & Dr. Tucker Peck

This is the only podcast we know of devoted to the teaching of meditation. We interview teachers and others about the process of teaching, how they became teachers, their thoughts on who should and shouldn't teach, tips for new and veteran teachers, and more. While teachers and prospective teachers of meditation will of course find lots to learn here, this is also a great resource for anyone who wants to peer behind the curtain of being a meditation teacher. You can learn more about your hosts Upali over here https://upalimeditation.com/ and about Tucker over here https://meditatewithtucker.com/

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20 episodes
fortnightly
Avg 58 min
English

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S3 · E12
August 10 · 1 hr
Monica Heiser: Mindfulness in Daily Life
Send us Fan Mail Upali interviews Monica Heiser, a teacher in the insight lineage Mindfulness in Daily Life (MIDL). Monica is one of the few guests we've had on the show who is a fulltime school teacher, so she and Upali talk about how this informs her pedagogy. She and Upali talk about effort and overeffort in practice, and how this can lead to big distractions such as lust for jhanas, and they contrast this with the positive feedback loop of wellbeing that comes from balanced practice. You can read more about Monica at https://monicaheiser.com/meditation-awakening/ and more about the lineage at https://midlmeditation.com/ Support the show
S3 · E11
July 13 · 1 hr
Lysha Smith: Teaching Goenka's Vipassana
Send us Fan Mail Lysha Smith is a senior teacher in the lineage of SN Goenka, running the Dhamma Dhara center in Massachusetts. The conversation touches on a number of issues, including How they manage to keep their courses free of charge Why they're so "unhip"? (We think we're the first big<ish> Dharma podcast to do an episode on Goenka) Do Goenka retreats cause serious mental health side effects at a higher rate than other traditions, or is it just the sample bias (way, way more people do their retreats than others)? How is the lineage evolving? Support the show
S3 · E10
June 9 · 48 min
George Haas: Developing Secure Attachment
Send us Fan Mail Meditation teacher and attachment theory expert George Haas talks about the effects of insecure attachment, as well as how combining meditation with other modalities can cause a permanent shift in attachment style. See mettagroup.org for more information. Support the show
S3 · E9
May 18 · 48 min
Leigh Brasington: In Search of a Successor
Send us Fan Mail Leigh tells us the story of how he became a jhana teacher, and we learn the thrilling story of the life of Ayya Khema, his teacher. He tells us about jhana being an endangered species, and then he tells us about his newest book: Love, Compassion, Joy, Equanimity, which includes the concept of self-Mudita. The middle section is Leigh focusing on his search for a successor to make sure that jhana retreats continue. For more about Leigh Brasington, head over here. The Teachers Leigh Recommends in the Podcast https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/person/mary-aubry/ https://heathersundberg.com/ https://southerndharma.org/teachers/1587/meagan-chambers/ https://www.cheltenhamzen.co.uk/ https://rockymountaininsight.org/dharma-talks-lucinda-green/ Support the show
S3 · E8
May 6 · 1 hr 4 min
Robin Moisson: Meditation Teaching, Meaning, and Making a Living
Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Teaching Meditation, Upali interviews longtime student-turned-teacher Robin Moisson to explore his journey from an early crisis of meaning in engineering school to intensive retreats in Southeast Asian monasteries, and ultimately back to teaching in the West. They discuss navigating cultural barriers in traditional settings, discovering pragmatic Dharma, and Robin’s path from full-time to part-time teaching as he balances financial reality with practice and teaching. Learn more about Robin, in English or French, at https://robinmoisson.com/ Support the show
S3 · E7
Dec 2, 2025 · 1 hr
Boaz Feldman: Relational Meditation
Send us Fan Mail 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
S3 · E6
Nov 19, 2025 · 49 min
Professor Steven Haberlin: Teaching Meditation in Academia
Send us Fan Mail 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
S3 · E4
Jul 11, 2025 · 59 min
Learning Meditation: Anusheh. Meditation (Kinda) Resolved My Anxiety.
Send us Fan Mail 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
S3 · E5
Jun 27, 2025 · 53 min
Stephen Zerfas: Making the Jhanas Accessible
Send us Fan Mail 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
S3 · E4
Jun 13, 2025 · 1 hr 10 min
Learning Meditation: Yuri. Using Meditation to Cope with War
Send us Fan Mail 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
S3 · E3
May 30, 2025 · 38 min
Dr. Tucker Peck: Freedom is the Opposite of Community
Send us Fan Mail Upali 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. Support the show
S3 · E2
May 14, 2025 · 51 min
Learning Meditation: Kacee. Dealing with Overwhelm in Meditation
Send us Fan Mail Kacee 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 show
S3 · E1
Apr 25, 2025 · 54 min
North Burn: Spending 20 Years on Retreat
Send us Fan Mail Dharma 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 show
S2 · E10
Mar 29, 2023 · 1 hr 15 min
Marianne Bentzen: Intimacy and Playfulness; Trauma and Resource
Send us Fan Mail 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. Support the show
S2 · E9
Mar 13, 2023 · 57 min
Dr. Daniel Ingram: Managing Controversy in Dharma Circles
Send us Fan Mail 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. Support the show
S2 · E8
Feb 6, 2023 · 1 hr 4 min
Julianna Raye: The Unified Mindfulness Teacher Training Program
Send us Fan Mail Guest 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 show
S2 · E7
Aug 30, 2022 · 59 min
Dharma 3.0 and Multiplayer Meditation with Vince Horn
Send us Fan Mail Vince 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 show
S2 · E6
Aug 9, 2022 · 1 hr 3 min
Shaila Catherine: When Students Get Distracted
Send us Fan Mail Shaila 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 show
S2 · E5
Apr 9, 2022 · 1 hr 13 min
Lopon Chandra Easton: 10 years of Vajrayana Training, and Feeding Your Demons
Send us Fan Mail Lopön 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 show
S2 · E4
Mar 27, 2022 · 50 min
Henrik Norberg: Religious Buddhism, or, Teaching Retreats in Caves
Send us Fan Mail Henrik 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 show

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