The Meditation Summit: Volume 1: Deepen and Expand Your Meditation Practice with the World's Leading Teachers
About this audiobook
Most of us are well aware of the benefits of meditation, and new research is providing us with more and more evidence of what the world's spiritual traditions have known for years: meditation can positively impact every area of our lives.
So why do many of us struggle to make time for this powerful practice? Why do we so often wonder if we're doing it right? Or feel as if something more should be happening?
In The Meditation Summit: Volume I, Sounds True publisher and founder Tami Simon speaks with ten leading meditation teachers about their personal understanding of this practice—each with a complete guided meditation. Practitioners of all levels will benefit from the abundance of insight and guidance provided by these diverse voices.
Volume 1 Guests and Topics:
“Somatic Meditation and Connecting with the Source” with Reginald A. Ray, PhD
Dr. Ray teaches a unique approach to meditation in which our body is our most trusted teacher and guide on the meditation journey. Here, he speaks with Tami about how this differs from many conventional styles of meditation. His presentation includes detailed instructions for tantric breath work and an embodied meditation for “Connecting with the Source.”
“Kundalini Meditation: Accessing the Light Within” with Snatam Kaur
In her conversation with Tami, Snatam Kaur explores the transformational power of sacred chant, how kundalini meditation can help us balance our body’s primary energy currents, and more. Her session includes a guided experience of kundalini meditation for accessing our inner light.
“Lovingkindness Meditation” with Sharon Salzberg
Sharon Salzberg is a leading teacher of lovingkindness meditation, a practice that helps cultivate our natural capacity for an open and loving heart. She speaks with Tami about meditation as a path to joy in the happiness of others, peace within ourselves, and an expanded circle of compassion, guiding us through a classical lovingkindness meditation.
“Your Brain on Meditation: Cultivating Inner Strength and Peace” with Rick Hanson, PhD
Neuropsychologist Rick Hanson discusses the intricate relationship between meditation and our brains, including how mindfulness can activate real brain change, how we can stimulate positive states of mind through self-directed neuroplasticity, and more.
“Feeding Your Demons: A Tibetan Meditation Practice for Deep Healing and Integration” with Lama Tsultrim Allione
In this presentation, Lama Allione introduces a traditional Tibetan practice that develops our ability to heal and integrate into wholeness by offering compassion to our demons, rather than battling against them. Her presentation includes the powerful guided practice, “Five Steps of Feeding Your Demons.”
“Mindfulness Meditation in the Tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh” with Anh-Huong Nguyen
Anh-Huong was among the first of Thich Nhat Hanh’s students to become ordained as a dharma teacher. In this presentation, she talks with Tami about how we can integrate mindfulness practices into our daily lives, discussing the use of conscious breathing, living fully in the present moment, and more.
“Small Glimpses of Freedom, Many Times” with Loch Kelly, MDiv, LCSW
In his conversation with Tami, Loch Kelly discusses how awakening is already here, how we have the ability to directly experience this awakened state through “small glimpses,” and how this practice can help us realize our deeper potential for living with openhearted awareness.
“Mindfulness and the Art of Turning Towards Life” with Saki Santorelli, EdD, MA
Dr. Santorelli explores the practice of MBSR (mindfulness-based stress reduction) and its capacity to bring greater peace, awareness, and joy to our lives. His presentation includes a mindfulness meditation practice to help us become more attuned to the subtler dimensions of what it is to be human.
“Chakra Meditation from the Top Down” with Anodea Judith
In this session, Anodea explores how we bring the fruits of our meditation practice into the world through our words, acts, and deeds. She guides us through an in-depth meditation to bring Divine awareness down through the chakras, allowing us to begin the art of purposeful creation.
“The Art of Forgiveness” with Jack Kornfield, PhD
In this presentation, Jack invites us to experience the power of forgiveness, exploring meditation as a pathway to cultivate our ability to forgive ourselves and others, as well as how this frees our hearts from suffering and liberates us from the past. He includes a guided practice to take us through the three dimensions of forgiveness.
At perhaps no other time in history has there been such widespread recognition of meditation's potential to transform our lives. The physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits of a regular meditation practice cannot be overstated. With The Meditation Experience, you’ll receive inspiration, guidance, and support from a diverse selection of leading teachers so you can develop your own consistent and nourishing meditation practice. And when you commit to a meditation practice, you commit to living a more engaged, meaningful, and joyful life.
Discover more
About the author
Reginald A. Ray
Reginald A. Ray, PhD, is the cofounder and spiritual director of Dharma Ocean Foundation, dedicated to the evolution and flowering of the somatic teachings of Tibetan Tantra. He is a lineage holder in the tradition of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Reggie is the author of several books including Touching Enlightenment and The Awakening Body. He makes his residence in Crestone and Boulder, Colorado. For more, visit dharmaocean.org.
Snatam Kaur
Snatam Kaur is an American artist raised in the kundalini yoga tradition. Schooled in kirtan, meditation, and Gurmukhi (the Sanskrit-based language of Sikh scriptures from northern India), she met her first music teacher at the age of six. She has released eight records, including the most recent Liberation’s Door (Spirit Voyage, 2009), and is the lead singer for the Celebrate Peace tours. A resident of Santa Cruz, California, she teaches kundalini yoga and kirtan workshops across the U.S.
Sharon Salzberg
Sharon Salzberg, a student of Buddhism since 1971, has been leading meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. Influenced by her more than forty-five years of study with Burmese, Indian, and Tibetan teachers, she teaches intensive awareness practice (vipassana or insight meditation) and the cultivation of lovingkindness and compassion. She is a cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society and The Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, both in Massachusetts, with Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein. Salzberg is the host of Metta Hour, a New York Times bestselling author and the author of many books, including Real Love, Real Happiness at Work, The Kindness Handbook, Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience, Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness, and A Heart as Wide as the World. She has also authored several Sounds True audio and interactive learning programs including Insight Meditation (with Joseph Goldstein), Unplug, and Lovingkindness Meditation. Learn more at sharonsalzberg.com.
Rick Hanson
Rick Hanson, PhD, is a psychologist, a senior fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, and a New York Times bestselling author. His books are available in 26 languages and include Resilient, Hardwiring Happiness, Buddha’s Brain, Just One Thing, and Mother Nurture. He edits the Wise Brain Bulletin and has numerous audio programs. A summa cum laude graduate of UCLA and founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, he’s been an invited speaker at NASA, Oxford, Stanford, Harvard, and other major universities, and has taught in meditation centers worldwide.
Dr. Hanson has been a trustee of Saybrook University and has served on the board of Spirit Rock Meditation Center. His work has been featured on the BBC, CBS, and NPR, and he offers the free Just One Thing newsletter with 135,000 subscribers, plus the online Foundations of Well-Being program in positive neuroplasticity that anyone with financial need can do for free.
He enjoys rock climbing and taking a break from emails. He and his wife have two adult children.
Lama Tsultrim Allione
Lama Tsultrim Allione is an author, an internationally known Buddhist teacher, and the founder of Tara Mandala, a mountain retreat center south of Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Lama Tsultrim was the first American woman to be ordained as a Tibetan nun by His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa. At the age of 26, after four years as a nun, she returned her monastic vows, married, and raised three children. Lama Tsultrim subsequently earned a master’s degree in Buddhist studies and women’s studies from Antioch University. She is the author of Feeding Your Demons and Women of Wisdom. She was awarded international recognition as an “Outstanding Woman in Buddhism” in 2009 by a panel of distinguished scholars and practitioners in Bangkok, Thailand. In 2012 she received the Machig Labdrön Empowerment from His Holiness the Seventeenth Karmapa. Lama Tsultrim’s teachings arise from the blessings of her many wonderful Tibetan teachers, her 40 years of practice and dedication to the Buddhist teachings, and her experience as a Western woman and mother. For more, visit taramandala.org.
Loch Kelly
Loch Kelly, MDiv, LCSW, is a leader in the field of meditation and psychotherapy. He is author of the award-winning Shift into Freedom and founder of the Open-Hearted Awareness Institute. Loch is an emerging voice in modernizing meditation, social engagement, and collaborating with neuroscientists. For more, visit lochkelly.org.
Saki Santorelli
Saki F. Santorelli, EdD, MA, is a professor of medicine, director of the internationally-acclaimed Stress Reduction Clinic, and executive director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. As a faculty member in the Department of Medicine, Division of Preventive and Behavioral Medicine, he has worked with thousands of medical patients and has educated and helped mentor generations of practitioners and researchers of mindfulness and mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), engaging in more than 30,000 clinical hours of MBSR. In 2001, he founded Oasis Institute, a comprehensive professional education and training program leading to teacher certification in MBSR. In 2003, he founded and is chair of an annual scientific conference on mindfulness, entitled Investigating and Integrating Mindfulness into Medicine, Health Care and the Society. 2014 marks the 12th year of this annual, international meeting. In 2011, Saki established the annual John and Tussi Kluge Translational Research Symposium on Mindfulness. Saki teaches and presents internationally and is the author of Heal Thy Self: Lessons on Mindfulness in Medicine.
Anodea Judith
Anodea Judith, PhD, is the author of the chakra classics Wheels of Life and Eastern Body, Western Mind, along with several other award-winning books (Waking the Global Heart) and videos (The Illuminated Chakras) on psychology, spirituality, and global transformation. She is an internationally acclaimed speaker and workshop presenter, as well as a psychotherapist and yoga teacher. She holds a doctorate in mind-body health and a master’s in clinical psychology. Her website of workshops, books, and products is www.SacredCenters.com.
Jack Kornfield
Jack Kornfield, PhD, trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma, and India and has been teaching meditation internationally since 1974. He is one of the key teachers to introduce mindfulness practices to the West. He co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts and founded the Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre California. He holds a PhD in clinical psychology and has taught in centers and universities worldwide. Jack has led International Buddhist Teacher meetings with the Dalai Lama, worked with many of the great teachers of our time, and is a father and activist. He is co-creator of the Awareness Training Institute and has written more than a dozen books, including Meditation for Beginners; A Path With Heart; After the Ecstasy, the Laundry; and more.
