The Meditation Summit: Volume 2: 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 II, 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 II Guests and Topics:
“A Nourishing and Liberating RAIN” with Tara Brach, PhD
This talk explores the three primary components on a path to healing and freedom: inquiry into truth, remembering love, and embodying awareness. Dr. Brach also introduces us to RAIN, her acronym for an accessible and powerful way to strengthen and apply these domains of spiritual practice, along with a guided meditation.
“Yoga Nidra: The Meditative Heart of Yoga” with Richard C. Miller, PhD
Yoga Nidra is a type of deep yogic meditation. Here, Dr. Miller and Tami discuss the core components of Yoga Nidra, including the easily accessible ways in which Yoga Nidra brings us to an embodied awakening of our essential nature. This presentation includes a guided meditation through all ten steps of the Yoga Nidra process.
“Effort and Release” with Rev. angel Kyodo Williams
Rev. Williams applies wisdom teachings and embodied practice to social issues and is a preeminent thought leader of transformative social change. Here, she talks with Tami about how meditation develops our capacity to be with the suffering in ourselves and others, awakening our warrior spirit and willingness to engage the world.
“Trusting the Buddha Within” with Thich Nhat Hanh
Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh illuminates how we can trust in the living presence of the Buddha as a guide for our daily practice. This session explores how to recognize an awakened being through the quality of their actions, letting the Buddha do the work for us when things get overwhelming, and a guided meditation for resting in the present moment.
“Mindfulness Meditation” with Joseph Goldstein
In this presentation, Joseph Goldstein guides us through the common stages in a mindfulness practice, including mindfulness techniques to transform our meditation experience and a guided meditation to help us release identification with the self and observe the changing nature of all that is.
“Tonglen Meditation: News We Can Use” with Pema Chödrön
Tonglen literally means “taking and sending,” and is a powerful Tibetan Buddhist practice for relieving the suffering of ourselves, others, and the world. Here, Pema illuminates this traditional practice with a discussion and guided formal tonglen meditation.
“Exploring the Mind” with Shinzen Young
In this talk, Shinzen examines our relationships with our thoughts and how we can use meditation as a gateway to create a healthier internal dialogue with them. He takes us through a unique guided meditation for parsing thought into mental images and mental talk, opening the way to states of creative flow and tranquil rest.
“Meditation in the Dzogchen Tradition” with Lama Surya Das
Lama Surya Das introduces the Tibetan Dzogchen tradition of meditation, discussing how we can create a better world through the wise action that stems from an expanded meditation practice, the idea of “non-meditation” and seeing through the illusion of separateness, and more.
“True Meditation” with Adyashanti
Adyashanti speaks of true meditation as a path for awakening to the truth of our being through a moment-to-moment state of discovery. With a discussion and guided practice of true meditation, he helps us free ourselves from agenda and technique, drop our preconceived ideas of what meditation should look like, bring awareness to our senses, and awaken to the present moment.
“Awake at Work: Mindfulness for Connection, Creativity, and Collaboration in the Workplace” with Anakha Coman
In this presentation, Anakha discusses how we can use mindfulness practices at work to bring forth our genius and create a culture of engagement, connection, and excellence. She teaches us easy-to-use mindfulness micro-practices that heighten mental clarity, insights, and creativity while on the job.
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
Tara Brach
Tara Brach has been practicing and teaching meditation since 1975, as well as leading workshops and meditation retreats at centers throughout North America and Europe. She has a PhD in clinical psychology, is the founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington (IMCW), and is the author of Radical Acceptance, True Refuge, Radical Compassion, and Trusting the Gold. Tara’s weekly podcasts of talks and meditations are downloaded more than three million times each month. For more, visit tarabrach.com.
Richard Miller
Richard Miller, PhD, is a master of yoga and meditation who holds a doctorate in clinical psychology. Recognized as a leading authority on the practice of Yoga Nidra, he has founded and cofounded several key organizations including the International Association of Yoga Therapy, the Institute for Spirituality and Psychology, and the iRest Institute. Currently he is helping research the efficacy of iRest, a healing program Miller developed based on Yoga Nidra, with diverse populations. He lectures and teaches this method across the globe.
Rev. angel Kyodo williams
Rev. angel Kyodo williams is a Zen priest, author, social entrepreneur, and founder of the organization Transformative Change. Her work centers on the essential link between embodied inner work, becoming whole, and social transformation, and how we leverage love on behalf of justice for people and the planet at scale.
A social visionary and leading voice for transformative social change, she is the author of Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace and coauthor, with Lama Rod Owens and Jasmine Syedullah, of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation.
Her work engages at the root, field, and resource levels of social transformation. She is also a queer Black womanist, who has learned how to use suffering as a path to liberation. She articulates a vision for a new America as critical to healing backward the systems of racialization that have harmed us all.
Rev. angel speaks, consults, and coaches as an interventionist of old paradigms, and designs programs and trainings of impact that disrupt patterns that hinder love and justice. She has served on boards and has both taught and lectured widely across lines of faith and action, including at the Omega Women’s Leadership Center, the historic Rankin Chapel at Howard University, Authentic Leadership Center, and Mind & Life Institute.
Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the On Being podcast, the Washington Post, Ms., and Essence.
Rev. angel notes, “Love and Justice are not two. Without inner change, there can be no outer change. Without collective change, no change matters.” She was made for these times.
Learn more at angelkyodowilliams.com.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–2022) was a Zen master in the Vietnamese tradition, scholar, poet, and peace activist. He founded the Van Hanh Buddhist University in Saigon and taught at Columbia University and the Sorbonne. Thich Nhat Hanh is the author of the national bestseller Living Buddha, Living Christ and more than 60 other books. He was nominated for the 1967 Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr.
Joseph Goldstein
Joseph Goldstein has been leading insight and lovingkindness meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. He is a cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society, the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, and the Forest Refuge. Since 1967, he has studied and practiced different forms of Buddhist meditation under eminent teachers from India, Burma, and Tibet. His books include A Heart Full of Peace, One Dharma, Insight Meditation, and The Experience of Insight.
Pema Chödrön
Ani Pema Chödrön was born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown in 1936, in New York City. She attended Miss Porter’s School in Connecticut and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. She taught as an elementary school teacher for many years in both New Mexico and California. Pema has two children and three grandchildren.
While in her mid-thirties, Ani Pema traveled to the French Alps and encountered Lama Chime Rinpoche, with whom she studied for several years. She became a novice nun in 1974 while studying with Lama Chime in London. His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa came to Scotland at that time, and Ani Pema received her ordination from him.
Pema first met her root guru, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in 1972. Lama Chime encouraged her to work with Rinpoche, and it was with him that she ultimately made her most profound connection, studying with him from 1974 until his death in 1987. At the request of the Sixteenth Karmapa, she received the full bikshuni ordination in the Chinese lineage of Buddhism in 1981 in Hong Kong.
Ani Pema served as the director of Karma Dzong in Boulder, Colorado, until moving in 1984 to rural Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, to be the director of Gampo Abbey. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche gave her explicit instructions on establishing this monastery for Western monks and nuns.
Ani Pema currently teaches in the United States and Canada and plans for an increased amount of time in solitary retreat under the guidance of Venerable Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche.
Ani Pema is interested in helping establish Tibetan Buddhist monasticism in the West, as well as continuing her work with Western Buddhists of all traditions, sharing ideas and teachings. Her nonprofit, The Pema Chödrön Foundation, was set up to assist in this purpose.
She has written several books: The Wisdom of No Escape, Start Where You Are, When Things Fall Apart, The Places That Scare You, No Time to Lose, Practicing Peace in Times of War, How to Meditate, and Living Beautifully. All are available from Shambhala Publications and Sounds True.
Shinzen Young
Shinzen Young became fascinated with Asian culture while a teenager in Los Angeles. Later he enrolled in a PhD program in Buddhist Studies at the University of Wisconsin. Eventually, he went to Asia and did extensive training in each of the three major Buddhist traditions: Vajrayana, Zen and Vipassana. Upon returning to the United States, his academic interests shifted to the burgeoning dialogue between Eastern meditation and Western science. Shinzen is known for his innovative “interactive, algorithmic approach” to mindfulness, a system specifically designed for use in pain management, recovery support, and as an adjunct to psychotherapy. He leads meditation retreats throughout North America and has helped establish numerous mindfulness centers and programs. He also consults widely on meditation-related research, in both the clinical and the basic science domains. He often says: “My life’s passion lies in exploring what may arise from the cross-fertilization of the best of the East with the best of the West.”
Lama Surya Das
Lama Surya Das is one of the most highly-trained American-born lamas in the Tibetan Dzögchen tradition and has been leading retreats since 1989. For nearly 50 years, he has studied with the great spiritual masters of Tibet, India, and Asia. Born Jeffrey Allen Miller, he left home for college in the 1960s; went to Woodstock; marched in anti-war rallies in Washington; graduated Phi Beta Kappa from SUNY, Buffalo; then went to India and Asia on a spiritual quest.
Surya Das is the founder of the Dzögchen Foundation and the author of many books, including bestsellers such as Awakening the Buddha Within and Awakening to the Sacred. He is also the founder of the Western Buddhist Teachers Conference with the Dalai Lama, who affectionately calls him “the American Lama.” He lives in Lexington, MA. For more, see surya.org.
Adyashanti
Adyashanti is an American-born spiritual teacher devoted to serving the awakening of all beings. His teachings are an open invitation to stop, inquire, and recognize what is true and liberating at the core of all existence. His books include Emptiness Dancing, The End of Your World, True Meditation, The Way of Liberation, and Falling into Grace.
Asked to teach in 1996 by his Zen teacher of 14 years, Adyashanti offers teachings that are free of any tradition or ideology. "The Truth I point to is not confined within any religious point of view, belief system, or doctrine, but is open to all and found within all." For more information, please visit adyashanti.org.
