Speaker 1 · 0:01Has your life been transformed through mindfulness practice? Do you want to share what you've learned with others? Then this episode is for you. Welcome to the Mindfulness Exercises podcast. May this be a source of inspiration and motivation in your mindfulness practice and teachings. Today, we are talking about teaching mindfulness and sharing your gifts with others. You'll learn the difference between just inspiring your students versus motivating them to take action. We will talk about the experiences and qualities a mindfulness teacher needs. The field of mindfulness is constantly changing. So there is always room for mindfulness teachers who stay up to date. Our guest is Kevin Griffin, the author of six books, including One Breath at a Time, Buddhism and the Twelve Steps. Kevin is a pioneer in the field of mindful recovery and co-founder of the Buddhist Recovery Network. Kevin completed his own teacher training as a community Dharma leader at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. And in this episode, he provides answers to some of the most frequently asked questions from hopeful mindfulness teachers.
Speaker 2 · 1:43We're helping people to learn something for themselves. It's not information. You can read a hundred books on mindfulness and still not know how to meditate. And a lot of people actually do that, frankly. And so it's one of the reasons I don't even particularly care for the word teacher, because teaching is sort of associated with this idea of transmitting information. And sure, we have some information, but it's more that we are giving them the tools to have their own experience, have their own insights. And I sometimes give very different answers depending upon the person who's asking even the same question. We have to become very intuitive about where people are coming from and what they're looking for. And one of the other things that I often do is that I give one answer and then I say, and there's this. And it will be a contrasting answer just to fill it in, because again, it's not black or white. You know, that's the subtlety of practice, of meditation practice, when you just say, just pay attention to the breath. Well, we know that's not the whole of teaching. So what we really want to do is get people excited about practice, right? We want them to want to practice. We want to inspire them. So thinking about what we're offering as an inspiration. Someone asked Julia Butterfly Hill, who was the woman who sat in a tree for a year or however, said something about you really inspire me. And she apparently said, I inspire you to do what? So I like that idea that inspiration doesn't mean like you feel good, like I'm really inspired. It means you're motivated to do something. So we're trying to motivate. And it's the hardest thing, actually, is to motivate people to meditate, right?
Speaker 1 · 3:50And what does teaching mindfulness mean to you? As Kevin describes it, being a mindfulness teacher is less about having all the answers, and more about inspiring others to practice. So who or what first motivated you to practice? And how might you connect others to a similar source of inspiration? Perhaps you were motivated by personal suffering, or by success that failed to truly satisfy. Maybe you found motivation in the embodied ease or joy of a teacher, a living example of the benefits of mindfulness, and what was possible for you too. Everything we experience is a potential source of inspiration. Next, we'll hear from Kevin on a different type of motivation. Not what motivates us to practice, but to teach.
Speaker 2 · 5:09Great. But almost everyone has some ego, need, or wish to be sort of recognized and appreciated. And if you're doing this as a livelihood, you certainly want to make a living at it. And there's nothing wrong with having those impulses. But if those are the driving impulses, then I think it's a problem. But it's just sort of to ask ourselves, because it those things kind of come and go. And you might have a class or session where you get a lot of praise and you're feeling really great about yourself. And then you get an email afterwards from somebody saying, that was terrible, and you said this, and all of a sudden you're deflated, and you start to realize, oh wow, I'm kind of got a lot of ego invested in this, you know. That's not so helpful. So just to see that. Hopefully, you know, our primary goal is to serve people. And I think for many of us, that's what motivates us. We get so inspired, our lives are so transformed that we just really want to share it. And that's one of the real joys of practice is being able to pass on something and seeing other people finding the joy, finding the freedom that comes from their practice. There's also traditionally the idea of keeping a tradition alive. This is something that falls more under a Buddhist tradition or whatever meditative tradition you're involved in, to recognize, in a sense, that we have a responsibility that really somebody has to keep these things going. Each generation, humans have kept doing these practices and have passed them on to the next generation. If people stopped doing it, if nobody wanted to teach, there'd be nobody teaching the next generation, serving a particular population. That's why I particularly got into working with people in recovery, because I would go to these 12-step meetings that are supposed to be about meditation, and they would meditate for five minutes. And then for an hour and a half, people would talk about how hard that was to meditate for five minutes. And I was like, I think these people could use some help. And, you know, that was one of my motivations. It was really exciting to be able to see, oh, there's this population out there that kind of wants this, but they don't know how to do it. And there are many populations, uh, you know, the entire population, the whole world that needs this, of course. And then finally, Right Livelihood. I know a lot of people come to teaching meditation kind of in middle age over later, who have kind of had a career and have worked with people who've had very successful corporate careers and made a lot of money, but it's like, uh, it's not really doing it for me. They're not feeling that they're bringing real value to their lives. And so to be able to offer something that's really of service is can be very inspiring.
Speaker 1 · 8:18Reflect a moment on what inspires you to teach. It may be the very same thing that inspires you to practice. The more benefits we've received through mindfulness and meditation, the more we're organically compelled to share those benefits with others. So think about some benefits you've received through mindfulness and how they inspire or inform your teaching. As you contemplate, go beyond just a general desire to help others. How would you like to help others? And with what tools might you accomplish that? Whatever answer you arrive at, know that a strong personal practice offers you a stable, secure foundation. But as a mindfulness teacher or guide, what other experiences or qualities do you need?
Speaker 2 · 9:24Again, it's about practice. It's another one of those things. Like, it doesn't matter how many books you read, and I don't see that you can have a really thorough understanding of all the challenges of meditation without going on an intensive retreat. It's really important to have a lot of different experiences. You have to kind of, in a way, face all the difficulties that are involved in meditation, because somebody's going to come to your class and they're going to be having this difficulty. And if you haven't had that problem, you still might be able to answer, but you're going to be a lot more helpful if you've been like, oh yeah, I've had that problem of falling asleep, or I've had that pain in my back, or I've had that anxiety. And the deeper you go, that's the deeper you can take your students. And it means that you can take deeper students, if you will, like the people that are teaching month-long retreats, most of them have gone on three-month retreats, you know, continuing education. You have to keep studying and growing. I mean, one of the things you find is that people are catching up with you. So you got to stay ahead of the crowd. You know, your students, they start becoming teachers, but also the field of meditation, the field of mindfulness is constantly growing and changing. So you really have to stay up to date with your field. I also, this idea of creativity, for me, that's about how we come up with guided meditations, as well as our talks and the kind of stories and metaphors that we use. Listening, mindful listening, is really one of the number one skills in terms of working directly with students. There's a tendency when we are inspired by service and by helping people, we can kind of quickly try to go to solutions when people come to us with problems. So, first of all, we need to be able to sit with other people's pain, which is difficult, but you are asking for it, if you will, you know, by being a mindfulness teacher. People who come to mindfulness classes aren't coming because they're so happy and they don't have any problems. Most people come to meditation out of some challenge in their lives, whether it's emotional or even sometimes intellectual. You know, I've known of people who like we're seeking spiritual truth or something like that, but they're coming for help in their lives. And at times we can be kind of put on the spot, like I'm not a therapist, you know. Maybe some of you are, and there's a lot of mindfulness teachers who are therapists. I'm not one, but I'm often kind of put in that role. So the capacity to hear people's pain and then without having to fix it, that's what allows me, what allows you to hear your own wisdom. Because when you have the need to fix it, that's basically aversion. You can't be with the pain. And so when you are being aversive, you're blocking your own intuitive wisdom. As teachers, we have to be able to self-regulate when someone comes to us with something very difficult and breathe with that so that we can open and then hear a skillful response. You know, this happens in the 12-step world in the recovery world. Like people have a checklist. Oh, well, you need to go to more AA meetings or you need to call your sponsor. And so we can get into those kind of like checklists. Well, how much have you been meditating? And are you getting enough rest? What's your diet like or something? Which is, I mean, those could all be relevant questions, but are they the things that this person really needs? What's going on with them? So I think intuition is so important. And patience is sort of the patience to listen.
Speaker 1 · 13:58When it comes to experience and qualifications, our own mindfulness practice is at the top of the list. It's the depth of our personal practice that opens our heart and allows us to be present with the pain and suffering of others. With patience, we can listen mindfully and connect to the voice of our own innate wisdom. We become available to hear what our students really need, regardless of their questions. Consider the following practices and how they might support your growth as a teacher. To begin with, equanimity practices such as the just like me meditation or exchanging self for others can ease the separation sometimes felt between teacher and student. By dissolving these labels, we break down barriers to communication, connection, and healing. And then there's gratitude practice. When we're deeply engaged in gratitude, we can extend thankfulness for even our most challenging hardships. For it's through our own suffering that we're able to recognize pain in another. And of course, the heart-centered practices of compassion and self-compassion help us to let go of the negative voices that tell us we can't, or that we aren't enough. Each one of us is capable of sharing mindfulness with others. No matter which practice resonates with you most, your consistent efforts in it will support you as a teacher. But personal practice may not be the only skill you need, especially if working with groups.
Speaker 2 · 15:59One of the things I've learned as a teacher is that I don't get to pick my students. I sort of imagine the perfect student who will come in and have the questions that I want to address. But instead, it'll be like the annoying guy and the somebody who's a little passive-aggressive, or somebody who's interrupts everybody. This is probably all the same guy, actually. And often there is just this one person. It'll be like if we could just get rid of that person, you know. And so we're learning to work with that. The people who won't speak up, the people who dominate too much. And so holding all that space, right? Or there's a crisis, somebody's lost a family member and they're in crisis, and how do you hold the space? That stuff really takes a lot of patience and openness and skill and intuition. And it's why our own practice is so important. We have to really come to this grounded so that we can be there and hold the space for people. Sensitivity to different populations. Each of us has our own life experience. And it's very easy to over-generalize our life experience and not appreciate that other people can be coming from such a totally different place. And so to be really open in that way, but also educated. And particularly in this time when racism is so much in the forefront of consciousness in our culture in the mindfulness world, it's something that we've been attempting to address and educate ourselves about for a couple of decades. It's been a big area of attention. And so each of us, particularly the white people, really have a responsibility to educate ourselves around racism. There's some great literature out there. I've just been reading a book called Mindful of Race, which was really helpful. You know, in the spirit of service that we're trying to do, it's so easy to kind of wind up in sort of a comfortable world where it's like, oh, people like me, and not really be welcoming or sensitive to other people and other cultures. So this is a good question to ask yourself. What populations are you uniquely qualified to teach or to reach? And again, a very personal question: what are your skills? What are your experiences? And then further, you know, how am I going to reach them? Like I used to think, oh, I want to be one of those big-time meditation teachers that teaches month-long retreats, and those are the really good ones. And then I was on a retreat, and I was like, I don't really want to be here for a month at this meditation center. I want to be at home with my wife and daughter. And these people have all like been to Asia or they've sat for a year in a monastery or something. I'm like, that's not me, you know. And then of course, there was this community right in front of me, right? That I was, and then I realized, oh, that's who I need to reach. So what should I teach? Of course, depends somewhat on who you're going to teach. And then you hopefully become an expert in that. So then, of course, do you want it to be more secular? Do you want it to be more spiritual? And again, that kind of particular focus. It's really worth considering the populations that you might be able to reach, because maybe you're initially drawn to a teaching a particular population or a particular group, but keep your eyes open. There are a lot of opportunities. I've seen people who, you know, they had kids and then they realized, oh, I'd like to teach kids how to meditate. And maybe they were already teaching meditation in some other setting, but then, oh, what if I go to the school principal and ask if I could offer something? So to really keep your eyes open in that regard.
Speaker 1 · 20:15We keep coming back to the importance of personal practice as we now contemplate which populations we're best suited to teach and to reach. The question might become: how well do I know myself? Through mindful meditation, contemplation, and introspection, we get to know ourselves better. We become more aware of areas in which we need more education, mindful of our unconscious biases, and conscious of the communities in which we feel most comfortable, where our experience might resonate best. Applying kind curiosity to our present moment experience involves asking ourselves these good questions. And because we change, and everything around us changes, no answer is ever final. Having explored why you might want to teach and to whom, let's take a closer look now at what you might want to teach.
Speaker 2 · 21:26Now I'm just going to go through what I consider kind of the main topics. If you're introducing meditation, you're doing like a four-week, six-week, eight-week class. These are kind of the topics that I think you would cover. What is meditation? What is mindfulness? It seems that we have to spend a fair amount of time on that, and it's a question we have to keep coming back to. You know, people often, it's just a subtle uh misunderstanding people get that the way I like to characterize it is here I am telling people how to let go or how to sort of let go of control. And instead, they're always asking me, How can I control? How can I control my mind? And I keep telling them, like, that's not what I'm teaching you. I'm teaching you to be with the experience, not to fix it. So that first question is not just like, oh, toss it off. Got that. Mindfulness of breath, mindfulness of the body. And we know these are the foundations of mindfulness. And the heart practices, loving kindness and the heart practices, Sharon Salzberg's book, which came out in 1995, Loving Kindness, kind of brought it forward. Working with pain, physical pain, first of all, very common. So working with pain can also be working with painful emotions, the mindfulness of emotions. Obviously, mindfulness of thoughts. I have it pretty far down the list. For most people, that's maybe the number one challenge. I don't know. There's so many things competing for number one. And the judging minds, I'm pulling that out, even though it's just about mindfulness of thoughts. It's another kind of thought. It's a really good one to highlight because it's such a common one. So these are the things that I would present as sort of the basics. And then these are the things that I present as kind of going deeper. So working with trauma, addiction, and harmful habits, forgiveness, self and others, self-compassion, Kristen Neff's work around that. It's very powerful. Seeing the goodness, which is kind of like the James Bowers work, I would say. Equanimity, a difficult term for many people to understand. So it takes some time to kind of show people what that's talking about. But really a core idea. The science of mindfulness and neuroplasticity, this is really, really helpful for the skeptics and people who are, you know, like they don't want the robes and incense, you know, or maybe they really just don't see what's the point of sitting still doing nothing. And so the research on it, I think, really helps those people. As a teacher, it's another area where it's really good to be versed to whatever degree uh you find your audience sort of needs. Ethics for teachers, very important, but also teaching ethics, a tricky thing in the secular world, but mindfulness without ethics really is missing something essential. This contains the importance of non-harming. And a non-harming is kind of a principle behind mindfulness. And ethics is really about non-harming. It's not about rules or morality as a kind of right or wrong, but really about looking at how our lives are impacting each other and the world. Impermanence, grief, and loss. You know, impermanence is one of the key teachings in mindfulness tradition. And it's such a helpful thing to point people to. But you know, it's gonna pass. We all have that tendency to kind of get caught up in the moment, and we're sort of trying to be learned to be mindful of the moment, but we sometimes forget that bigger picture that, oh, this feeling or this pain or this disease that the world is struggling with, that it's impermanent. And then finally, gratitude and generosity.
Speaker 1 · 25:43Having gone through this list of both foundational and advanced topics in mindfulness, it could be helpful to pause here and consider which populations you are teaching, and what from this list would be most helpful to them. As Kevin has been mentioning throughout this podcast, use your own practice as a guide. Some of us are drawn to body practices, for example, while others feel most connected to compassion training, trauma-informed practices, or the science of mindfulness. Kevin has offered us a wonderful reminder to balance our education and training with personal exploration. This advice applies even when it comes to the business side of teaching mindfulness.
Speaker 2 · 26:33I presume people are aware of the book Search Inside Yourself. It's written by one of the early Google, not a founder, but one of the earlier engineers. So it's probably a good one, sort of written for that environment. Obviously, it's a very particular environment to teach in corporate settings. And again, you know, I think it takes your own skills and your own knowledge of that world. You know, uh, MBSR is really the best-known secular mindfulness practice. So it's a good one to be trained in. Uh, it's used a lot in hospitals with health providers, and works a lot with pain management. Originally, that was kind of the purpose of it, and then also managing depression and anxiety. Surprisingly, things like police departments and fire departments are looking for this kind of training these days. As I mentioned, my own work in treatment centers, a lot of need for mindfulness meditation in treatment centers. Schools, as I said, the organization mindful schools. A lot of school teachers are interested in this school principles. So if you had some kids in school or you were in an area where you thought they would benefit from it, you know, you just make a pitch. Just setting up your own class in public spaces like the Y or library is one approach. Usually you can't charge in those kind of places. You know, people often rent spaces in a church, Unitarian church or something, uh, to offer a class. And then just a personal practice. What I first did in my early teaching was actually James Barress. He taught an introductory class, and then people who wanted to continue, I had them just coming to my house once a week. I guess what I would just want to say is that this is just an ongoing process of trying to understand what's the most helpful way to teach. And that's meant for me always, first and foremost, my own practice.
Speaker 1 · 28:48Personal practice is and always will be our most helpful guide. It's a true gift to hear the experience and wisdom of the teachers who have come before us. But it's up to us to digest those lessons through practice and integrate them into our own life and teachings using our own authentic voice. Thank you to Kevin Griffin, who shared this very useful advice with the teacher trainees in our Mindfulness Exercises Teacher Training Program. You can access the full recording and get certified as a mindfulness teacher at teach.mindfulness exercises.com. To learn more about Kevin, Buddhism, and recovery, visit KevinGriffin.
