so you think you wanna teach meditation

actually it's me, i think that

in this post i want to explore the question “who the hell do i think i am to teach meditation,” as well as the related questions “what about the teachers who are better than me tho,” and “what if i suck and cause harm and people hate me”

this is part of a series i am doing to feel as clear as i can around these questions in preparation for the online course i am teaching soon. the questions “how do i want to want to relate to money and meditation teaching,” “what is meditation good for and what is it not good for,” and “what is my pedagogical philosophy around teaching meditation” i will save for future essays.

who the hell do i think i am to teach meditation

i started practicing meditation in 2013. in the beginning i was just learning from books and the 10% happier podcast. i tried a few apps. even though in the next few years my practice was inconsistent, it was already bringing me benefits, and i was working with the initial challenges of sitting while developing the basic skills of practice. additionally, i view that inconsistency as part of the process of learning to practice.

i went to my first meditation retreat in the summer of 2017, at spirit rock in california. my faith in meditation grew in huge measure from that experience. in 2018 i attended a 10 day retreat in the s.n. goenka tradition. my daily practice got really solid that year; i started sitting for an hour most days. in 2019 i started working with tempel smith on a regular basis, who has been my primary teacher since that time. tempel is a well-known teacher in the insight meditation community, and on the teachers’ council at spirit rock. in 2019 i also started working with psychedelic medicines in a big way, which have been quite impactful on my meditation practice as well as my spiritual practice as a whole.

in the early pandemic years, i sat three more fully silent retreats from home, all with support from tempel, two of which were entirely focused on metta practice. i also took two online intensive courses tempel was teaching, one on anapanasati practice, the other on the brahmaviharas.

my own daily practice continued (often sitting two hours per day, these years), and i attended a three-week long retreat at IMS in the fall of 2021, followed by the three-month long retreat at IMS in the fall of 2022 (which you can read about here). this retreat was a big inflection point in my practice. in truth, during and after the retreat, part of me felt like “ahhh, i’ve FINALLY really begun to practice!”

upon returning i continued to practice at home and be a fairly voracious reader of dharma books and listener to dharma talks and podcasts. around this time my interests started to broaden from just the insight/theravada tradition out to other teachers and traditions.

2024 was a great year of practice, which can be read about in detail here. Highlights include attending a jhourney retreat to practice metta, samadhi, and jhana, attending 2 months of the boundless refuge silent retreat, several theravada monastery stays, a month at zen mountain monastery, and an additional wonderful month of “half-retreat” with around 4-6 hours of practice a day while working in the kitchen at a dharma program for young people.

in the last several years, my meditation practice has also been supported by a wide variety of engagements with various other modalities, including psychedelic medicines (as previously noted), relational practices such as circling, authentic relating, and non-violent communication, psychological practices such as internal family systems (IFS), ideal parent figure protocol (IPF), and techniques from the art of accomplishment, and body practices including rosen method bodywork, ecstatic dance, and contact improvisation.

do you have any teaching experience though

when i first told tempel i was interested in helping people learn to meditate, he suggested i get involved with inward bound mindfulness. i took their year-long teacher training program, and have been staffing their teen retreats every summer since 2021. inward bound gave me a lot more experience guiding meditations, gave me a ton of relational mindfulness practice and tools, familiarity with trauma sensitivity as it relates to meditation practice, and a lot of embodied practice in skillful mentorship. these skills have also been practiced at the IMS teen retreats, which i’ve now staffed two of.

then this happened, a little while after returning from the IMS three-month:

and since that time i’ve given around 85 individual meditation coaching calls (free or by donation). most have been one-offs, and a few people have had regular calls with me for some period of time.

as i reflected a year after beginning the coaching practice:

some other teaching experiences i’ve had include teaching two five-week meditation classes and some one-off offerings at spiritus christi church in rochester ny (where i used to work as a musician), as well as giving two offerings for rochester recovery communities.

ok, yuck! what feels inauthentic about all that? why does part of me feel defensive? what am i trying to prove?

of course it’s good and relevant to share about my practice and teaching history; that’s not an unskillful thing to do. but i notice in my body a feeling of some desperation, of trying to be good enough or prove myself, of trying to defend against imagined accusations that i’m a hack.

the resume might help others who don’t know me at all have some trust that i might know what i’m talking about, but what is it that convinces me that i could help people learn meditation, or that i’m qualified to do so?

i think more than anything, it’s that teaching is a skill, and i love learning skills, and i have been observing myself learning this skill for several years, and i feel like i’m pretty good at it, actually.

i feel like:

• i’m pretty good at being spaciously attuned to whoever i’m talking with in this context

• i’m pretty good at sorting through the answers that come to mind for questions, and sharing them in a clear way that is nuanced but not overloaded

• i’m pretty good at keeping my teaching always connected to the heart

• i’m pretty good at practicing vulnerability when it’s appropriate in teaching

• i’m pretty good at being on someone’s team in a full way, while also not having an agenda for them, and while trusting their own intuition and intelligence

• i know a fuck ton about this practice, the various kinds of practice, all the adjacent stuff, the various lineages, and the contemporary scene

• i have explored this practice in a deeply personal way for over a decade and it has helped me immensely

is there room for growth in all of these areas (and others)? of course! but i already delight in the skillfulness i have in them, i see myself improving, and i can feel that the way to keep improving is to keep teaching.

aside from my self-assessment of my teaching as a skill, the thing that bolsters me the most is the positive feedback and encouragement i have been consistently receiving from students, peers, and mentors for several years now. it feels great. sometimes, it’s hard to take in. in the aggregate, its message to me is clear.

i texted tempel this week to ask if i could have his public approval to teach this upcoming course. he said “Yes, for sure! Share the dhamma for the welfare of many.” i also checked in with my friend and mentor sara shapouri who gave me “a big hell yes and happy to vouch” 🥲

what about all the teachers who are better than me tho

i know people who are fairly close to my age and more qualified than me in basically every regard. people who are more awake than me, who are better read than me, who have more intelligence than me, who have spent more time in monasteries than me, who have deeply practiced more techniques than me, who have more teaching experience than me. by all means, dm me and i will happily connect you to them.

i guess what it comes back to for me is that 1) just because there are people who are more skilled than me doesn’t mean my skills can’t also meaningfully help people, 2) in the ecosystem of skill-learning, it’s natural and beneficial for there to be lots of teachers at various levels, and 3) like all people, i have a unique mind and personality and way of relating, and what is unique about me may be helpful to some students.

(part of me wants to whine about a 4th point, which is “tons of people wayyy less practiced than me are teaching meditation all the time and they’re not worried about how they aren’t mega-enlightened yet!” and while that sentence is true, it also doesn’t really justify me teaching or not. some subset of them are surely not qualified, and some subset are surely safely helping onboard a great many meditators.)

to expand on point #2, i like to imagine the world of learning the piano. if the only people who taught the piano were highly accomplished conservatory professors or world-class performers, practically no one would be able to study the piano. there is a huge range of capability amongst the world’s piano teachers! and for a beginner student, the conservatory professor might not be the best fit, anyway.

it’s true there are teachers who, through their lack of understanding, might give some bad advice! and i think what this makes me confront is that there is no avoiding of making mistakes in life. as i’ve tweeted before, “there is no perfect score in samsara.” ultimately, mistakes are part of the process of any kind of learning, and that includes the learning of how to teach. given this, how can i minimize harm?

what if i suck and cause harm and then people hate me!?

i include “and then people hate me!?” in the title of this section, even though it is not really the most important concern, because i want to be honest that this fear is a big part of what holds me back. i’m afraid of blame! i’m afraid of hurting my reputation! ultimately, i believe real self-worth isn’t dependent on any amount of praise or blame. at the same time - how can i feel like i’m approaching teaching responsibly? how can i confidently stand behind all my decisions, no matter what happens?

i think one of the important ways to mitigate risk as a meditation teacher is to teach in an appropriate venue for one’s expertise. leading a five minute guided relaxation at the end of a yoga class or at the beginning of a math class is less risky than teaching a day-long or a course, which is less risky than teaching a five-day intensive or fully-silent retreat, which is less risky than teaching a three-month retreat (and i’m scared to even think about the three-year thing that happens in some tibetan traditions!). i don’t feel qualified to teach a silent retreat. i do feel qualified to teach an introduction-to-meditation class!

serious harm can occur from meditation practice, but this is much less likely from a daily life practice than from retreat practice. i’m familiar with the general principles of what to watch out for, and intend to carefully re-read david treleaven’s book “trauma sensitive mindfulness” before teaching my upcoming class. (i’d also love to take the class that he offers, one day.)

i think another important safeguard is to be operating in the context of peers and mentors who i can discuss questions with, and who can help point out blindspots i’m unaware of. the need for this increases as the intensity of the setting increases.

and then there are lesser dangers of teaching - not that of failing to prevent an adverse reaction or abusing the role, but simply of giving advice that is not quite right, or not as helpful as it could be. this is unavoidable. it is lessened by continuing to deepen my personal practice and study, by learning from the teaching interactions i have, and by continuing to read from, study with, and associate with wise beings. the question is if i can be sufficiently helpful to make it worth the time of others to speak with me, and i believe the answer is yes.

all this said… what if someone out there DOES think i’m a hack? what if someone says to me “who do you think you are? you have no business calling yourself a teacher, or teaching classes!” well… if this triggers the contractive view “i’m a bad person” for me, then i get to feel and examine those feelings, knowing that ultimately, that view can’t be correct. and if someone’s criticism is a good-faith effort to alert me to mistakes i have made, i get to do my best to understand and consider what modifications may be needed or what projects may need to be stopped, in consultation with my peers and teachers.

let’s go back to the defensive feeling from earlier - is that still here?

i guess it is. i think i’ve made a convincing case to myself and hopefully others that i’m adequately prepared to teach this class, it’s a good idea, and i can do a good job. but if all that analysis is just trying to defend a deeper emotional insecurity, it becomes brittle, and in a sense, not totally honest. so what’s honest, here?

i’m scared people will lose respect for me, just by claiming i’m qualified to do this

i’m scared i won’t know how to help someone

i’m scared i’m deluding myself about being ready for this, and i’m out of my depth

i’m scared my personal practice isn’t “good enough,” i’m not skilled enough at concentration, i’m not awake enough, i don’t understand it well enough

i’m scared of the part of me that is seeking validation through the image of “meditation teacher,” and i’m scared of others seeing it

i’m scared of giving bad advice

i’m scared i won’t know how to keep people safe

i’m scared someone will call me irresponsible

i’m scared people who i look up to will think that i think i’m just as qualified or deep as them because i’m teaching, when actually my respect and admiration for their practice and expertise is immense

i’m scared of being seen as a sell-out, as someone who’s not in it for the pure love of the practice

i’m scared that talking about teaching on twitter will lead people to think i’m fake and inauthentic. i’m scared of the incentive to use my twitter account in a fake and inauthentic way

i’m scared of the difficulty of being authentic when in the role of a teacher

i’m scared i’ll like some students more than others, or i’ll have judgements that will be difficult to work through

i’m scared people won’t see how much i do know, how much i can help. i’m scared i won’t be able to communicate well

and i’m scared that if i’m vulnerable and honest like this, people won’t want to work with me

whew. omg. those all felt really good in the body to find and then to write. there might be more to find still but i’m glad these are up and out. some are scarier than others. for a lot of them, naming the fear already goes most of the way to calming it.

i don’t have a reason ready to go for how this all contributes to the question of me teaching or not or hahaha - i’m just in the practice of sharing what is both scary and true for me, whenever i can. (thank you AoA.) this piece didn’t feel completely connected to my heart without it.

i hope the energy of an undefended (or at least, less defended) heart will come through in these words. after all, meditation practice in some sense is the art of carefully, lovingly, unforcingly, undefending the heart.

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may my practice be of benefit to myself and all beings

may my endeavors to teach be of benefit to myself and all beings

may humility, authenticity, sincerity, the immeasurable heart qualities, and wisdom guide me

may all beings be content, alive, and free

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my online course, “meditation fundamentals: practicing for a free heart” is now launched and accepting participants! it’s an 8-week long program beginning april 12th designed to help beginners establish a regular meditation practice that is of benefit to their lives, and will also be helpful for anyone who already has meditation experience and wants the support of instruction and community as well.

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(if you wish to financially support my life and efforts, i invite you to contribute via my patreon account. thank you.)

thank you to @joshacheson who beta read this piece, and encouraged me to consider exploring more of my insecurities