Be Here Now Network

Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg recall their early lives and initial years of mindfulness practice and share what drew them to meditation in the late sixties and early seventies.

This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/insighthour

This podcast is being released in tandem with Sharon Salzberg’s Metta Hour Hour Podcast. Sharon is a meditation pioneer, world-renowned teacher, and New York Times bestselling author. She and Joseph are co-founders of The Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA. Sharon is the author of numerous books, including the New York Times bestseller, Real Happiness, and her seminal work, Lovingkindness.

“This lasted for two years, and they were the worst two years of my practice, the most difficult. And it took me that long to realize that it wasn’t about getting something, it was about opening to what was there. But I was so attached to that wonderful experience that it was really subverting the deeper understanding of what meditation really is. So it took me such a long time, but finally, after two years of struggle, something released, let go, and I just settled back and opened to whatever was presenting itself.” – Joseph Goldstein

In this conversation, Joseph shares about:

Growing up in the Catskills and his early encounters with death and loss • Studying philosophy at Columbia University and living in New York City during his college years • Joining the Peace Corps and living in Thailand • His first encounters with Buddhist monks and the resonance of finding the spiritual path • The ups and downs of his initial years of practice and finding his teacher, Munindra • Meeting Sharon at her first retreat with S.N. Goenka • The community that emerged out of the Goenka retreats • The parallels of the evolution of his and Sharon’s path

Sharon shares about:

The difficulty of her childhood • Her first encounter with Buddhist Philosophy in college and creating a study abroad program to take her to India • Receiving Chögyam Trungpa’s advice on where to learn meditation • Searching for meditation instruction across India as a young woman • The scene at her first retreat led S.N. Goenka • Learning how to navigate her inner life • Meeting Joseph for the first time • Her and Joseph’s different practice needs in their early years • Crafting a spiritual path before there was a model for that life in the West

This episode is part of a continuing series of interviews between Sharon Salzberg & Joseph Goldstein about their lives and contributions to Buddhism. For more like this, subscribe to Sharon's Metta Hour Podcast.

In simple, heartfelt presence, Jack Kornfield teaches us about coming into the dharma body.

Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/heartwisdom

"You can see it in your life. It's helpful to be aware when you drive, or if you paint or you do computer programming or you make love, or you write poetry, or you garden. Mindfulness, I declare, is all helpful. With that presence is the path to freedom, to awakening." — Jack Kornfield

In this episode Jack Kornfield discusses:

- Stories of Thich Nhat Hanh

- Becoming the Buddha

- Cosmic Breakthroughs

- Navigating Death

- Mindfull Awareness

Exploring how to open the heartmind, RamDev, offers insight into love, devotion, suffering, boundaries, resistance, and equanimity.

Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/beherenow

"In Sanskrit there's not two words for heart and mind, there's one word. The heart is really the depth of the mind; the mind is the surface of the heart." – RamDev Dale Borglum

In this episode RamDev Dale Borglum explores:

- The inherent connection between heart and mind

- Loss, grief, embodied mindfulness, trust, and boundaries

- Devotion and the qualities of an open heart

- Suffering, resistance, presence, and healing

- Love, attachment, equanimity, and compassion

- Spiritual practices for opening the heart

- A guided meditation on opening the heartmind

Krishna Das describes the first step of any mindfulness practice: calming the mind. When the mind is serene, we can handle it all.

Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/beherenow

"Not only are you singing, you're using your breath, you're hearing the sound of your voice and other voices, and that all helps you pay attention. It all helps you stay home, here, where we are supposed to try to be." – Krishna Das

In this episode, we learn about:

Staying focused and present

Mantras and chanting

Grief and loss

Being at home in our being

Detachment and relationships

The true nature of real love

In this unique offering from the Love Serve Remember Foundation archives, Joseph Goldstein joins Ram Dass for a conversation around love, emptiness, soul, the notion of self, and much more.

NEW Meditation Series: Pause, Breathe, Be Here Now with Ram Dass, Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach, Joseph Goldstein, John Lockley, Ram Dev, Trudy Goodman, Lama Tsultrim Allione—FREE January 16 to 25. Sit in true peace, love, and tranquility. Join thousands of people around the world for this collective meditation experience: onecommmune.com/ramdass

“And let’s not forget joy. In you is joy. In you is compassion. Peace. Emptiness. And love. Those are all in you. In you. Now, manifest them in your behaviors. And your thoughts.” – Ram Dass

In this episode:

- Joseph and Ram Dass reminisce about the early days of their friendship and how their relationship has evolved over the years

- They respond to a question about whether there’s a relationship between love and Tao, exploring the concepts of self (and no self), emptiness, and soul

- Ram Dass asks Joseph about the concept of dharma and they discuss the way of nature

- The conversation veers into karma, free will, and whether or not everything is predetermined

- They touch the mysterious forces at work in the universe and the power of imagination

- Joseph and Ram Dass respond to a question about developing compassion amidst intense polarization

- Ram Dass ends with a brief guided meditation

Jack Kornfield describes the Buddha's vow to awakening and how we too can set a daily intention to awaken.

NEW Meditation Series: Pause, Breathe, Be Here Now with Ram Dass, Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach, Joseph Goldstein, John Lockley, Ram Dev, Trudy Goodman, Lama Tsultrim Allione—FREE January 16 to 25. Sit in true peace, love, and tranquility. Join thousands of people around the world for this collective meditation experience: onecommune.com/ramdass

"An intention creates our life. Thought manifests or leads to deeds, deeds develop into habit, habit hardens into character and character shapes our world." – Jack Kornfield

In this episode Jack Kornfield discusses:

The small, intimate choice to awaken

Collective awakening

Intention in practice

The interplay of mind and body

Through a mixture of storytelling and conversation, Raghu Markus, Krishna Das, and David Silver all describe their experiences with K.C. Tewari.

NEW Meditation Series: Pause, Breathe, Be Here Now with Ram Dass, Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach, Joseph Goldstein, John Lockley, Ram Dev, Trudy Goodman, Lama Tsultrim Allione—FREE January 16 to 25. Sit in true peace, love, and tranquility. Join thousands of people around the world for this collective meditation experience: onecommune.com/ramdass

"As I recognized that I didn't need to keep secrets and I didn't need to pretend to be anybody—I could just be me. It was so liberating." – Krishna Das

"When I was looking at Tewari in this film, every single time I saw him it had a flashy effect on me. It did something to me just like when I met him." – David Silver.

"With everything else, his incredible deep spiritual nature, his wisdom, but the delight of just hanging out with him. We would look forward to going to India and just hanging out even if he'd be doing his all night puja" – Raghu Markus

Exploring the dharma of liberation, Joseph invite us beyond delusion and into the true nature of mind as innate wakefulness.

This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/insighthour

NEW Meditation Series: Pause, Breathe, Be Here Now with Ram Dass, Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach, Joseph Goldstein, John Lockley, Ram Dev, Trudy Goodman, Lama Tsultrim Allione—FREE January 16 to 25. Sit in true peace, love, and tranquility. Join thousands of people around the world for this collective meditation experience: onecommmune.com/ramdass

“Sudden awakening is not a state of mind that is developed—it's the innate wakefulness of mind, it's the nature of mind that is free of delusion. When delusion is not present, there is the experience of awareness, of wakefulness.” – Joseph Goldstein

This dharma talk from February 16, 2000, was originally published on Dharma Seed.

Moving beyond our small sense of self, Jack Kornfield introduces us to the ways intention, love, and acceptance can transform us.

Amidst our ever-changing lives, we can find the patterns which form from our hearts and realize the source of who we are.

Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/heartwisdom

NEW Meditation Series: Pause, Breathe, Be Here Now with Ram Dass, Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach, Joseph Goldstein, John Lockley, Ram Dev, Trudy Goodman, Lama Tsultrim Allione—FREE January 16 to 25. Sit in true peace, love, and tranquility. Join thousands of people around the world for this collective meditation experience: onecommune.com/ramdass

"Our heart is the garden into which we plant seeds and nourish them. Depending on our intention, gradually, we shape the patterns of our lives. What's important then is not so much what we say or do, but what is the intention with that? " – Jack Kornfield

Telling tales of Ram Dass and psychedelic escapades, Raghu Markus and Jeff Krasno discuss that which is beyond our rational mind.

Discover integrating transcendent experiences into daily life using a process versus product mentality, learn about the Bhakti path, and enjoy many stories of our spiritual teachers.

NEW Meditation Series: Pause, Breathe, Be Here Now with Ram Dass, Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach, Joseph Goldstein, John Lockley, Ram Dev, Trudy Goodman, Lama Tsultrim Allione—FREE January 16 to 25. Sit in true peace, love, and tranquility. Join thousands of people around the world for this collective meditation experience: onecommune.com/ramdass

"To have a different experience of yourself or of consciousness—not as a separate self but as a feeling, as a sensation of being completed integrated into the universe—to taste that, even if you just taste it for a moment and you come back down, it sparks something." – Jeff Krasno