Saturday, February 4, 2023

Early life of Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein

Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldsten (BHNN); Sheldon S., Ashley Wells (eds), Wisdom Quarterly
Young hippie meditators once surrounded a little enlightened woman in Calcutta: Dipa Ma

The Early Life of Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein
(Be Here Now Network) Metta Hour Podcast's Episode 199 premiered Feb. 1, 2023. Sharon Salzberg (whose Real Happiness Meditation Challenge runs all of February) is on the Metta Hour Podcast with her legendary friend Joseph Goldstein. Both are interviewed by Lily Cushman, recalling their early lives.

They each share what drew them to the Buddhist path of meditation in the late 1960s and early 1970s and their initial years of Buddhist practice in the exotic East.

This podcast is being released in tandem with the Joseph Goldstein's Insight Hour Podcast.

Joseph Goldstein has been teaching meditation since 1974. He and Salzberg are co-founders of the Insight Meditation Society and the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, located in Barre, Massachusetts.

Goldstein is the author of numerous books, including Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening and Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom.

Dan Harris calls Goldstein “a key architect of the rise of mindfulness in our modern [American] society.” In this conversation, Goldstein shares about:
  • what it was like growing up in the Catskills
  • early encounters with death and loss
  • studying philosophy at Columbia University
  • living in New York City during his college years
  • joining the Peace Corps and living in Thailand
  • his first encounters with Buddhist monks
  • the resonance of finding the spiritual path
  • the ups and downs of his initial years of practice
  • finding his teacher Anagarika Munindra [who was the teacher of famous Bangladeshi Buddhist teacher Dipa Ma of Calcutta/Kolkata]
  • meeting Salzberg at her first mindfulness retreat with S.N. Goenka
  • his experiences as more Westerners arrived in India
  • the community that emerged out of the Goenka retreats
  • grappling with his “body of steel” for many years
  • the parallels of the evolution of his and her path
Sharon Salzberg shares about:
  • the difficulty of her childhood
  • her first encounter with Buddhist philosophy in college
  • 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
  • the difficulty of her first instruction being a 10-day retreat
  • some themes of her initial meditation experiences
  • learning how to navigate her inner life
  • meeting Goldstein for the first time
  • her and Goldstein’s different practice needs in their early years
  • crafting a spiritual path before there was a model for that life in the West.
To learn more about Joseph Goldstein’s work, visit dharma.org/joseph. His teachings can also be found on the Ten Percent Happier app, the Waking Up with Sam Harris app and on the Dharma Seed app.
Be Here Now Network podcasts, courses, and articles help us live life in balance. It's heart-centered wisdom from Ram Dass, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Krishna Das, and many more. Get a free guided meditation from Sharon Salzberg when first signing up at: beherenownetwork.com
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