Practicing Meditation Together

I invite you - individuals and groups, workplaces, organizations and friends - to practice with me. Before I tell you why practice at all, and why specifically with me, there is one thing I want to make sure doesn’t get lost: this is an invitation to practice together.

I have been practicing meditation for many years. Which means that I have been practicing Buddhism for many years, but that is a more complicated statement for me. Buddhism is also a religion, and my relationship with religion is complicated. Meditation is a practice. A method. Something one does.

I have teachers, Steve and Rosemary Weitzman, who, before every retreat, ask participants to fill out a questionnaire. One of the questions is about self-definition: do you define yourself as a Buddhist?

I answer no.

I define myself as someone who practices Buddhism. Definitions, of self and of others, are, as anyone who has practiced Buddhism for ten minutes knows, a very reliable source of dukkha (dukkha — suffering, pain, dissatisfaction).

In the early 2000s, I arrived in India, where I began practicing without knowing, without telling myself that what I was doing was practicing. Ten years later, following a broken heart and a major collapse of my life plans, I began practicing knowingly and consciously, acknowledging that this was what I was doing. I went on my first Vipassana retreat in April 2011. It was a week-long insight meditation retreat.

One day during the retreat, a group of participants and I met with the teacher, Christopher Titmuss, for a conversation. One of the participants told Christopher that he worked in high-tech, as a programmer, and that he was very stressed at work, while now, here at the retreat, he was very relaxed.

“How do I take this with me to work?” he asked.

Christopher said some things that I don’t remember, and then, at the end, he said something I do remember: that it is not always possible. That there are jobs that don’t allow peace of mind. That wisdom also means knowing when to change something.

I rebelled internally. I don’t want to change, I thought. And if I do change, I don’t want it to be because things are difficult for me, I thought, because I can’t handle them. That’s not wisdom, I thought. I want both, I thought. I want to work in high-tech and feel at ease. Or, at the very least, I thought, I want to stop waking up at four in the morning arguing with my boss in my head. At least that. For many years, part of my motivation for practicing was to deal better with the pressures of work.

In November of that same year, a little over six months after my first retreat, I left Israel and moved to Berlin. I continued practicing. And my practice grew and expanded and deepened and spread through me like a wildflower garden growing inside my heart. At some point, in order to deepen my practice, I trained as an MBSR teacher, and I am now a certified teacher. I taught the MBSR course in Hebrew and English at a studio in Prenzlauer Berg. I have led guided meditations at my last three workplaces. I facilitate a reading and practice group around the Satipatthana Sutta. I love practicing, and I want practice to fill every part of my life.

I offer individuals and groups a framework, guidance and support to begin practicing, to continue practicing, and to make practice part of their lives.

Individuals

If you want to practice meditation but don’t know how to start, or how to continue, get in touch. We’ll talk and find a framework that supports you in bringing practice into your life — into your everyday life, into the flow of things, into something you do regularly, like brushing your teeth.

Groups + work places

You can invite me to give a talk, or to lead weekly practice sessions. In your offices or online. Half an hour or an hour.