Why Good Teachers Go Bad, with Shinzen Young

In this special one-year anniversary episode, Shinzen Young talks with host Michael W. Taft about becoming a meditation teacher, the unrealistic paradigm about what meditation delivers, Shinzen’s codependency disaster, Bill Hamilton, the great unsung hero of vipassana in the Western world, homology theory, how science can influence meditation in the West, sociopathic teachers, and what we can do to make sure that good teachers don’t go bad. Who is a teacher? What’s the family test? These questions and more.

Shinzen Young is an American mindfulness teacher and neuroscience research consultant.His systematic approach to categorizing, adapting and teaching meditation, known as Unified Mindfulness, has resulted in collaborations with Harvard Medical School, Carnegie-Mellon University, and the University of Vermont in the burgeoning field of contemplative neuroscience. You can learn more about Shinzen on his website shinzen.org.

Show Notes

1:40 – Shinzen Intro

3:00 – Shinzen talks about Homology Theory

7:50 – Meditation and science complement each other like algebra and geometry

9:30 – Coupling of science and contemplative practice

12:50 – What science can teach contemplative practice

13:49 – In some ways scientists have less ego than meditation masters

15:50 – All meditators are teachers

20:55 – Ability of a “professional meditation teacher” to lead students through all goals

24:24 – Why meditation teachers should have respectful but open and unhurried dialog to improve the field

36:44 – Improving science by reducing ego in other ways via Meditation

38:25 – The contradiction of advanced meditators exhibiting unacceptable behavior

42:44 – The high profile flagrant behavior of a few tends to overshadow the overall positive impact of practice

46:30 – What’s missing in the case of advanced meditators who go morally off track

59:30 – Unrealistic paradigms of what liberation and meditation delivers and how it’s possible to do wrong from a place of emptiness

1:10:20 – Role/Power of a meditation teacher and culture

1:16:01 – Plane crash analogy and Shinzen’s story of going off-track

1:21:40 – The feedback that helped Shinzen fix co-dependence

1:24:50 – Bill Hamilton, “the great unsung hero of vipassana in the West”

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