Metta Hour with Sharon Salzberg

For episode 248, Cortland Dahl makes his first appearance on the Metta Hour to speak about his new book, “A Meditator’s Guide to Buddhism: The Path of Awareness, Compassion, and Wisdom.”

Cortland is a scientist, Buddhist scholar & translator, and meditation teacher. He is the co-founder of Tergar International, a global network of meditation centers, with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. Cortland is also actively involved in scientific research on meditation and human flourishing at the Center for Healthy Minds.

In this conversation, Sharon and Cortland discuss:

• What brought Cortland to spiritual practice
• Eastern versus Western cultural conditioning
• The Tibetan culture of being
• Reclaiming the word “devotion”
• Cortland learning the Tibetan language 
• The impetus for Cortland’s new book
• The Dalai Lama’s first visit to IMS and North America
• The Four Noble Truths
• Cortland’s first encounter with Buddhism
• Learning to take refuge
• How long until we’re enlightened?
• Nurturing our inspirations
• Recreating ancient traditions in the 21st Century
• Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
• The Center for Healthy Minds

Cortland closes the conversation with a guided meditation on Open Awareness. You can learn more about Cortland’s work and get a copy of “A Meditator’s Guide to Buddhism” right here.

Learn more about Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche and Tergar International right here and the Center for Healthy Minds right here.

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For episode 247, we are continuing the Fireside Chat Series on the Metta Hour with guest Joseph Goldstein.

This series features intimate conversations with longtime dharma teachers about the early days of their practice and the most impactful moments with their own teachers. Hosted by IMS Online, the fifth episode in this series. Joseph Goldstein has been leading insight and lovingkindness meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. He is a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA, where he is on the guiding teachers’ Founders Council. In 1989, he helped establish the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. Joseph first became interested in Buddhism as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand in 1965. Since 1967 he has studied and practiced different forms of Buddhist meditation under eminent teachers from India, Burma and Tibet. He is the author of many books, including Mindfulness and Insight Meditation.

In this conversation, Sharon and Joseph discuss:

• The origin story of founding IMS
• Sharon and Joseph’s first meeting in India
• Joseph’s apartment in Boulder, CO
• How Joseph found Munindra, his first serious teacher
• What Joseph loves mosts about teaching
• Joseph’s first lovingkindness intensive
• Dipa Ma’s meditative life
• What inspired Joseph most about Dipa Ma
• Unifying confidence and humility in ourselves
• Working with the inner critic when teaching
• Learning how to say “I don’t know”
• Dudjom Rinpoche and re-incarnation
• Understanding the basis for our opinions
• Early challenges in Joseph’s teaching
• The popularization of meditation
• What inspired Joseph to pursue Buddhism
• Taking delight in being awake
• Approaches for self-acceptance
• Advice for new retreatants

You can learn more about Joseph’s work and many books right here and listen to his Insight Hour Podcast right here. Learn more about IMS Online right here.

Listen to Lily Cushman interview both Sharon and Joseph in Episode 199 of the Metta Hour right here or check-out some older conversations with Jospeh in Episode 110 and Episode 47.

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For episode 246, Susan Cain makes her first appearance on the Metta Hour!

Susan is the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers Quiet, and Bittersweet, which was also an Oprah Book Club selection. She has spent the last twenty years exploring a particular realm of human nature: the quiet, the sensitive, the thoughtful, the bittersweet. Susan’s record-smashing TED talks have been viewed over 50 million times and she the host of the Quiet Life online community.

In this conversation, Susan and Sharon discuss:

• How Susan approaches writing
• VIA character strength test
• Does great art have to come from great pain
• How suffering brings us together
• Susan embracing her “differences”
• The Quiet Life Community
• Why sadness is a bridge to connection
• The Dalai Lama the Darwinist
• Moral elevation
• Dipa Ma telling Sharon she would teach
• Leonard Coen as Susan’s patron saint
• Beauty in the broken world
• Never be ashamed of your suffering
• The history of the word “loser”
• Susan learning Lovingkindness meditation
• Lovingkindness and boundaries
• Chocolate and Brussels sprouts

Susan closes the conversation with a guided reflection. You can join Susan’s Quiet Life Community right here.

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For episode 245, we are continuing the Fireside Chat Series on the Metta Hour with guest Guy Armstrong.

This series features intimate conversations with longtime dharma teachers about the early days of their practice and the most impactful moments with their own teachers. Hosted by IMS Online, the fourth episode in this series. Guy Armstrong has been leading insight meditation retreats since 1984 in the U.S., Europe, and Australia. His training included living as a monk for a year in the Thai forest lineage. Guy is a member of the Spirit Rock Teachers Council and a guiding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society and is the author of Emptiness: A Practical Guide for Meditators from Wisdom Books.

In this conversation, Sharon and Guy discuss:

• Guy’s first encounter with meditation 
• How Sharon reached her first retreat 
• The mystery of being drawn to practice 
• The three characteristics of existence
• Guy’s introduction to Emptiness 
• Mahasi Sayadaw noting technique
• Mental Noting Technique 
• Insights of anattā (Emptiness)
• The path Guy has taken since 1976
• The importance of relaxation
• What advice Guy would give his younger self
• Goenka’s directive to sit two-hours a day
• Thai Buddhist monk Ajahn Buddhadasa
• The year that Guy was a monk in Thailand
• Burmese Theravāda monk, Pa Auk Sayadaw

The episode closes with some questions from the audience on Emptiness, Dzogchen practice, Tsoknyi Rinpoche Handshake practice, the spectrum of Emptiness, “where is mind,” and the Jhanas. 

You can learn more about Guy’s work right here and get a copy of his book, Emptiness: A Practical Guide for Meditators, right here. Learn more about IMS Online right here. Listen to Guy’s first episode on the Metta Hour, Episode 90, right here from 2019.

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For episode 244 Valerie Mason-John makes their first appearance on the Metta Hour to speak about their new book, “First Aid Kit for the Mind: Breaking the Cycle of Habitual Behaviors”.

Valerie is a founding facilitator of Compassionate Inquiry and the author of eleven books, including the award-winning book, “Eight Step Recovery.” They are a co-founder of the training program, Mindfulness Based Addiction Recovery, and work as a public speaker in the field of Mindfulness for Addiction and Trauma.

In this conversation, Valerie and Sharon discuss:

• How lovingkindness saved Valerie’s life
• How Valerie became the “Bully Doctor”
• Valerie’s journey in recovery
• The importance of community in recovery
• Recovery Cafe
• Gabor Mate’s Compassionate Inquiry
• Thoughts are not facts
• First-Aid Kit for the Mind
• The breath is medicine
• What is still true? What can we rely on?
• Dharma: that which we can rely on
• Thich Naht Hanh’s influence on Valerie
• How to maintain mindfulness 
• The role of Storytelling in Valerie’s work
• How story compounds addiction
• Playwriting and poetry as social justice

Valerie closes the conversation with a guided meditation LOVE from their new book, First Aid Kit for the Mind. Learn more about Valarie’s work on their website right here.

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For episode 243, we are continuing the Fireside Chat Series on the Metta Hour with guest Tuere Sala.

This series features intimate conversations with longtime dharma teachers about the early days of their practice and the most impactful moments with their own teachers. Hosted by IMS Online, the third episode in this series. Tuere Sala is a Guiding Teacher at Seattle Insight Meditation Society and the founding teacher of the Capitol Hill Meditation Group. She is a retired prosecuting attorney who has practiced Vipassana meditation for over 30 years. Tuere has been teaching since 2010 and has a long history of assisting others in establishing and maintaining a daily practice. The conversation begins with a guided meditation from Tuere.

In this episode, Sharon and Tuere discuss:

• What drew Tuere to the Dharma
• Tuere’s work as a prosecutor
• Finding steadiness without fixing things
• How sangha supports practice
• Spiritual practice is not just about fixing what we don’t like
• Death is not a failure
• Suffering as poetry 
• Sympathetic Joy
• How gratitude cultivates energy
• Tuere’s Christian faith 
• The three refuges
• The effects of guilt in our lives 
• Tuere’s challenges with compassion 
• What Tuere’s practice looks like
• The Thai Forrest Tradition 
• Sharon’s favorite Dharma quote 

You can learn more about Tuere’s work on her website right here. Learn more about IMS Online right here.

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For episode 242, Emma Seppälä, Ph.D. returns to the Metta Hour to speak about her new book, “Sovereign: Reclaim Your Freedom, Energy, and Power in a Time of Distraction, Uncertainty, and Chaos.”

 Emma is  a best-selling author, Yale lecturer, and international keynote speaker. She teaches executives at the Yale School of Management and is faculty director of the Yale School of Management’s Women’s Leadership Program. She is also the Science Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. A psychologist and research scientist by training, Emma’s expertise is the science of happiness, emotional intelligence, and social connection. 

In this episode, Sharon and Emma discuss:

• Emma’s definition of the word “Sovereign”
• Self-loathing hiding out as self-criticism 
• The toxic relationship with ourselves
• The myths of high-achievers 
• Sharon’s story of facing self-imposed beliefs
• How Emma has worked with self-loathing
• Emma’s first meditation experience
• You have to name it to tame it
• Internalizing the stories told about us
• Awareness + courage
• Emma’s definition of the term “self-compassion”
• The disempowerment of shame
• The research around lovingkindness
• How intuition supports sovereignty
• What research reveals about meditation
• The science of happiness
• Emma’s study of breath-work for veterans 

Emma closes the conversation with a guided meditation. You can learn more about Emma’s work and get a copy of “Sovereign” on her website right here.

Learn more about the Project Welcome Home Troops right here.

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For episode 242, Sharon speaks with psychologist Zindel Segal, PhD, and neuroscientist Norman Farb, PhD, about their new book, Better in Every Sense: How the New Science of Sensation Can Help You Reclaim Your Life.

Zindel is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology in Mood Disorders, University of Toronto Scarborough. He is a clinical psychologist whose research examines the use of mindfulness meditation in promoting affect regulation skills in people suffering from a depressive and anxiety based disorder. Norm is an Associate Professor, University of Toronto Mississauga and studies the social neuroscience of the self and human emotion, with a focus on how biases in self-representation shape emotional reactions that determine well-being.

In this episode, Sharon, Zindel and Norm discuss:

• How Norm came to this work
• What inspired the new book, Better in Every Sense
• Why people are languishing
• The Default Mode Network versus Sensory Network
• The positives of the “house of habit,” aka DMN
• “Breaking Frame” to solve problems
• Sense Foraging: shifting from thinking to sensing
• The three steps in Sense Foraging
• The role of equanimity in the Sensory Network
• How Interoception relates to empathy

The conversation closes with a meditation breathing practice led by Zindel. You can learn more about Zindel and Norm’s book Better in Every Sense, right here. You can also check out Zindel’s first appearance on the Metta Hour Podcast from 2020 in Episode 144.

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For episode 240, we are continuing the Fireside Chat Series on the Metta Hour with Kamla Masters.

This series features intimate conversations with longtime dharma teachers about the early days of their practice and the most impactful moments with their own teachers. Hosted by IMS Online, the second episode in this series. Kamala Masters is one of the founders and teachers of the Vipassana Metta Foundation on Maui. She teaches retreats in the Theravada tradition at venues worldwide, including being a Guiding Teacher at the Insight Meditation Society at Barre, Massachusetts. The conversation begins with a five-minute guided meditation from Kamala.

In this episode, Sharon and Kamala discuss:

• How Kamala and Sharon first met
• Kamala’s primary teachers and influences
• Sharon’s first travel to India
• How Kamala first found meditation
• Munindra teaching Kamala a washing dishes meditation
• Munindra’s way of breaking barriers for Sharon
• How Sharon met Dipa Ma
• How Sharon reparented herself with her teachers
• Munindra’s directive to “try harder”
• Distinctions in meditation methods
• How Kamala started teaching
• Sharing what their formal daily practice looks like today
• How they were taught lovingkindness
• Do people need a teacher?
• How to practice the Ten Paramis
• How to use mental noting
• Working with physical ailments and pain
• Perfectionism as a hindrance

You can learn more about Kamala’s work via the website for the Vipassana Metta Foundation on Maui right here.

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For episode 239, Sharon chats with friends Duncan Trussell and Raghu Markus about their new audiobook Moving from the Movie of Me to the Movie of We.

Duncan Trussell is a stand-up comedian, podcaster, writer, and actor. He is most known for his podcast The Duncan Trussell Family Hour. He produced and starred on the Netflix series The Midnight Gospel.

Raghu Markus spent two years in India with Neem Karoli Baba and Ram Dass. He has been involved in music and transformational media since the early 1970s. Currently, he is the Executive Director of the Love Serve Remember Foundation and hosts the Mindrolling Podcast on the Be Here Now Network.

In this episode, Sharon, Duncan and Raghu discuss:

• How the new book came to be
• The healing is in the return
• Self pre-occupation versus self-love
• The guru in Duncan’s kids
• Raghu’s parents meeting Neem Karoli Baba
• How Duncan first met Ram Dass
• Raghu and Duncan’s first hang
• Finding the mother archetype
• Wanting Jesus “with skin on”
• Ram Dass the therapist
• How to cultivate unconditionality
• Getting real with ourselves
• Duncan’s formal practice
• “Remember Buddha Nature and your SS number” – RD
• 
  

The conversation closes with a guided meditation by Ram Dass on Loving Awareness.

You can learn more about the new book Moving from the Movie of Me to the Movie of We right here.

Listen to Duncan’s podcast and check out his upcoming comedy events right here.

Listen to Raghu’s Mindrolling podcast right here.

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