New Horizons: Innovative Teachers of Awakening - Part 1: Shinzen Young
New Horizons: Innovative Teachers of Awakening - Part 1: Shinzen Young
Profiling a new generation of Buddhist and non-duality teachers making awakening more accessible
Introduction To This Series
I love learning about practices that actually lead to transformation. I became obsessed with eastern philosophy in my late teens, reading Krishnamurti every day. He set up a fantastic foundation to further explore meditation and spiritual practice - making it clear that each person needs to find their own way to truth and realization, and that we cannot rely on an outside authority, whether it be a person or a system, to save us.
Krishnamurti only gives one meditation technique which he calls choiceless awareness. I didn’t get much out of it at that age, so decided to explore Tibetan Buddhism, a tradition I had long been drawn to and also surrounded by, my parents being involved in the local community and even hosting renowned Lamas since before I was born.
So at 21 I formally joined a group in the Tibetan Nygma tradition, led by a teacher as formal and traditional as they come. I practiced diligently for a year, doing daily prayers, visualizations, and prostrations, and attended weekly meditation classes and teachings, as well as monthly Pujas (ceremonies). It was remarked by one of the inner circle that I was the only one in the group to not miss a single meditation class or teaching during this time, which speaks to my commitment.
But despite my eagerness and sincerity in practice, I didn’t make much progress. In fact I didn’t notice any change in myself at all. It became clear that it just wasn’t the way for me at that time, but I held out hope I would one day find the right teacher who could guide me to genuine transformation.
A year or two later I encountered a therapist and meditation teacher (actually a long time student of Roshi Philip Kapleau) who ran a small transpersonal psychotherapy school. I joined the program immediately and was introduced to a whole new world of transformative practice - Gestalt therapy, depth psychology, Holotropic breathwork, family constellations, and much more.
My interest in these things wove in and out of my life throughout my 20s. But shortly after turning 30 I had a profound psychedelic experience that reignited my passion. I started my own meditation group, but not from a desire to teach; I just wanted to share this type of space with my friends, who were increasingly becoming curious about meditation.
Around this time I met local meditation teacher Jeff Warren, founder of Consciousness Explorers Club, where I would later become a teacher at Jeff’s insistence. Jeff was the first person I had met who was even more obsessed with these things than myself. We quickly became close friends, hanging out a few times a week, mostly talking about this stuff. I owe Jeff a lot, as he introduced me to many of the teachers I’ll be profiling (including Shinzen, who Jeff also considers as his main teacher), and lovingly challenged all the ideas I had about meditation and development, helping me continue to grow and expand my understanding.
This series is all about sharing the teachers I have personally found most helpful and interesting, and as it goes I’ll undoubtedly deepen my exploration. It’s not uncommon for me to be at a party or gathering and meet someone expressing genuine interest in meditation. When this happens I want to share all my favorite teachers and books and what’s so great and unique about them; I could go on for hours, so I’ve become self-conscious about overwhelming people. I start with one or two teachers, only to circle back later in the conversation and recommend more - inevitably overwhelming the person.
Because this happens at least once a month, I decided to just start this series profiling these teachers so I can point interested parties here and not feel like I’m leaving out some crucial teachers or context.
I was originally going to write this as one long article, profiling 5 or 6 teachers and then doing about a dozen honorable mentions, but after hitting 9000 words and only profiling 4 teachers a friend suggested I make it a series instead. I was about to do what I always fear; overwhelm you with way too much information at once.
Disclaimer: Meditation and Awakening Do Not Address Many Important Issues
Firstly I want to say that this series is for people who are genuinely interested in Buddhist practice and/or non-dual awakening. This is undoubtedly a minority of people in the world, but still an important group.
This is not the approach I typically recommend for those struggling in life. People struggle for all sorts of reasons, and what I’ve typically found most helpful - at least initially - is helping people reflect on and contemplate what kind of life they actually want to be living.
Many people are struggling largely because they lack meaningful connection, alignment, and lived values. They’ve found themselves complacent in a largely superficial and isolating world.
I believe that to be well we need to live in a reciprocal relationship with the world, in which we can receive and feel supported, but also give and contribute in ways that are personally meaningful. What this looks like is up to each individual to discover.
Our culture champions superficial values like wealth, beauty, individual excellence, and social status. What is most personally meaningful and ultimately fulfilling is often in stark contrast to these things. Discovering and pursuing our most authentic values may therefore feel like we are further disconnecting and isolating ourselves from the wider culture. It is truly unfortunate that our culture, in general, does not support these pursuits.
This journey of finding a meaningful alignment with ourselves and the world is not an easy one. To gain more clarity and understanding in this domain, I usually encourage people to explore the work of James Hollis. His book Living An Examined Life is a great start and full of meaningful contemplation that is sure to bring more clarity to the journey of life. He’s written many fantastic and relevant books, so it’s worthwhile to explore his whole library. He’s also fantastic on podcasts, so that may be a good entry point to his work and ideas. I recommend his appearances on the Speaking of Jung Podcast as a great starting point.
Another reason people struggle is because of trauma, and lack of healthy attachment in early life (attachment trauma). These types of struggles can take a lot of work to overcome. There are many resources on this topic, and each person has to assess what’s possible given their unique situation. That being said, trauma focused therapy is an essential start but rarely enough, and people suffering from trauma symptoms can also be greatly aided by finding more meaning and direction in their lives, as these things can be extremely grounding.
The truth is it’s very difficult to heal and find wellbeing in an isolating culture - it takes a lot of work. My hope is that as people explore their deepest values, they will want to contribute to the collective well-being in more meaningful ways; slowly transforming culture from isolating and superficial to feeling more supportive, connected, reciprocal, and reflective of our true depth of being.
My big criticism of meditation culture is that it can be very individualistic and also provide people with a prefabricated value system. I think what people really need is to explore what their own unique values are and how they can meaningfully engage with the world.
All that being said, meditation and the types of practices discussed below can absolutely be helpful, supportive, clarifying, and transformative. I’ve just seen people use these types of practices to avoid confronting the root issues affecting them, or put off making big life changes because they think there are no problems with the outer world, only with our inner world (an example of how some Buddhist dogma can be unhelpful).
Sometimes we aren’t ready to confront deep held traumas or make big life changes, and that’s valid, but at some point we need to face the whole of ourselves and live in alignment with our deepest held truth.
It’s up to each of us to learn what works for us and how we fit into the world, and that will inevitably change and transform over time. I started a YouTube channel early in the pandemic to give tools and perspective to help people find their way to wellbeing, but it’s really up to each person to discover their own journey to healing given their own unique challenges, interests, and resources.
Shifting Perspectives on Awakening
Buddhism and spiritual practice in general has always been evolving, and we’ve seen some amazing innovation in the last decade.
When I first encountered Buddhist communities, the general sentiment was that awakening was reserved only for a special few, and that if we were good Buddhists and ardent practitioners then we will set in motion the karma to awaken in some future life.
Boy, have things changed. Many traditional Buddhist groups still hold these views, but there’s been a massive wave of reports of genuine awakenings by lay people (normal folk, not monks or nuns).
This is likely for a few reasons. One being that because of the internet and globalization in general, we can now compare a wide variety of practices and share results, refining our approach.
There are now many online communities, YouTube channels, and podcasts dedicated to discussing awakening as something attainable.
The teachers I’m profiling have made their practices very accessible, direct, and relatively efficient. They are not dogmatic, but results oriented, and emphasize the most essential aspects of practice and contemplation. They have been chosen because I’ve seen results in others and experienced them myself (to various degrees).
Shinzen Young
I’m starting with Shinzen for two reasons. First is that he has been the most influential teacher for me personally. Second is that I feel he has the most helpful framework that is invaluable in making sense of any and all types of spiritual practice.
Shinzen has an epic resume, not only has he studied with legendary meditation teachers all over the world for the past 50 years, but he’s also been involved with cutting edge meditation and neuroscience research at many of the top Universities (Harvard, Yale, Carnegie Mellon, University of Massachusetts Medical School, University of Vermont). He is currently co-director at the Science Enhanced Mindful Awareness Laboratory (SEMA lab) at the University of Arizona, involved in brain stimulation experiments to enhance mindfulness (profiled by the Guardian here).
After decades of study, personal experience, and teaching, he’s refined his system to be extremely simple and straightforward, while not reductive. He has long aimed at making meditation and mindfulness mainstream, and has therefore done away with all dogma, making it as widely accessible as possible.
Central to his paradigm is a simple formulation; that all progress in meditation and any spiritual practice comes from the development of three attentional skills. These are concentration, clarity, and equanimity.
Concentration is straightforward, it’s your ability to stay focused on what you deem relevant. Clarity is regarding how clear you can be with your sensory experience. There are many dimensions to this, you can notice the fine details of experience, dialing up the resolution, but also notice how sensations are experienced spatially or vibrationally, and how one sensation impacts another (like how a thought impacts a feeling, or vice versa). Equanimity is our ability to be totally ok with our experience. Not resisting at all, and not wishing for it to be any different or trying to feel better. Equanimity at the heart of many of the teachings emphasized in Buddhism, like craving and aversion, and non-judgmental awareness.
Ultimately I don’t think it’s a universal or absolute truth that all progress happens as a result of these three attentional skills - it’s not only these three things - but it’s undoubtedly one of the most helpful theories I’ve encountered. It’s been central to me understanding and progressing in my meditation and mindfulness practice.
Shinzen is the ultimate Buddhist geek. He is unparalleled in his wide reaching knowledge of not only Buddhist traditions, practices, and history, but also many other spiritual traditions (he has a love for Christian mystics and indigenous traditions too). He also speaks at least 10 languages and often explains the root of various terms, helping to further deepen understanding and also historical context.
Although Shinzen expounds high level technical knowledge, I never find his talks dry. He’s inspired and often gets a little giddy. His passion is contagious. I have listened to his talks for countless hours. His knowledge is extremely vast and far reaching, and I can't think of any other teacher that I could continue to be engaged with for such long periods.
It’s not just his deep knowledge that makes Shinzen unique, his precision is also unmatched. Shinzen has a deep love of science, and often says that he sees his role as bringing together the best of the east and west - the east offering their contemplative traditions, the west offering their rationality and methodology.
No one is as precise as Shinzen when it comes to pointing to subtle aspects of sensory perception. It’s unreal at times. One of many examples of this is how he works with mindfulness and physical pain, offering up many techniques to explore the sensory perception of pain, bringing it into more clarity, which also allows one to bring into more equanimity (acceptance or non-resistance).
Shinzen has this simple formula he will often display while teaching:
Pain x Resistance = Suffering
Pain x Equanimity = Purification
Purification is maybe a big idea, but you can think of it as the undoing of what keeps us closed off to a more expansive and connected state of being or awareness. When we open to pain and allow it to move through us unobstructed, welcoming it without resistance, it purifies or opens us. In Buddhism they talk about this as working through karma; in psychotherapy they may call this processing. This is at the heart of transformation, and brings a great sense of relief.
This formula applies to physical pain, but also any sort of discomfort, including difficult emotions. Trauma therapists know that to help someone heal, they need to feel safe to experience what once felt scary or overwhelming. Trauma healing, from a Buddhist perspective, is purification. (I made a video explaining the connection between equanimity and healing here, and there are links to meditations for cultivating equanimity in the description.)
When it comes to overcoming physical pain, there is no story as remarkable and validating of this approach as the transformation experienced by my friend and Shinzen student Byron. Byron suffered from acute atypical trigeminal neuralgia, what is described as some of the most intense and unrelenting pain imaginable. I met Byron on a Shinzen retreat and when he told me his story afterwards, I was floored. Years later when I started a YouTube channel I asked him to be on, and I’ve now heard from a number of people suffering from chronic pain that this discussion has changed their lives. I recommend this video to anyone and everyone, not just those suffering from chronic pain, but as a lesson on the transformative power of practicing equanimity in every aspect of our lives.
Also note that while Shinzen is a certified expert on Buddhism and also a Buddhist teacher, he does not consider himself Buddhist (although many of his students consider themselves Buddhist). He sees the term Buddhist as having a belief in Buddhism, which implies there’s dogma or faith in Buddhist ideas.
Shinzen has no such faith and doesn’t believe or teach anything he doesn’t have personal experience and understanding of. For example, I was once at a dinner where he was asked about karma and reincarnation and he said he had no personal evidence of these things and therefore doesn’t teach them. But don’t for a minute let that make you think that his teachings lack mystical elements, because his personal experience has been extremely mystical and he doesn’t shy away from this - he talks about his awakening and visionary experiences and also his personal experience of God with a sense of wonder and awe.
Practice Emphasis
While Shinzen’s system is comprehensive and inclusive, he emphasizes a certain type of noting or labeling practice in the Vipassana (Insight or Mindfulness) style. He focuses on tracking sensory experience in three domains: seeing, hearing, and feeling. Well actually six domains, because each has its inner and outer dimension (like hearing something in your environment vs hearing your inner dialogue as a form of thinking).
Shinzen is somewhat unique in his “divide and conquer” approach to Vipassana practice, where you pay attention to different sensory experiences individually, bringing them each into more clarity and equanimity. He’s also the only teacher I know (aside from his students turned teachers) that breaks thoughts down into visual image and auditory experience, which many people have found very helpful for developing more clarity with thoughts and also dis-identifying with them.
He also teaches what he calls Nurture Positive practices, which is for the most part just metta or loving-kindness practice, but can be any practice that cultivates a desired quality of being, though he doesn’t emphasize these practices as much as the noting.
The great thing about Shinzen is he’s very validating of many styles of practice, and encourages people to find what works for them. His system helps people understand why the practices work, why they may be stuck, and how to deal with common obstacles.
His system also helps you track your progress by emphasizing the core attentional skills of concentration, clarity, and equanimity. It’s truly a great formulation that can lead to a lot of insight around one’s development.
It should also be noted that Shinzen emphasizes what could be called a “bottom up” approach. This is in opposition to a “top down” or non-dual approach. With bottom up, we are working on the fundamental skills that will deconstruct our experience and gradually further our progress.
In top down approaches, we are trying to directly tune into true nature through inquiry into the nature of self and world or “pointing out” instructions where a teacher points directly to the qualities of ultimate reality that aren’t often noticed (I will explore a few great teachers who emphasize a “top down” or non-dual approach in future articles).
Shinzen absolutely talks about non-duality and explores top down thinking, but he doesn’t lead with these things. He does often teach a “Do Nothing” practice which has some top down qualities to it. He doesn’t really teach self-inquiry, though he sees it as a valid practice.
In my experience, some people simply get the top down direct method and it really works for them. But many don’t, and I think if it’s not landing then the mature thing is to take a more bottom up approach like Shinzen teaches, and maybe sprinkle in some more top down teachings as you go.
Strengths
Shinzen creates a comprehensive, clear, and inclusive paradigm. He is unmatched in his ability to define terms, practices, states of consciousness, and sensory experience. He’s also a person of integrity. I know many instances of him going out of his way to help others where there is no direct benefit to him. He used to put his phone number up on the board at retreats and say you could call him if you had a question (he no longer does this since he’s become a lot more popular).
He’s also non-dogmatic in his approach, and just as welcoming to atheist materialists as he is to Buddhists (though materialists may not be able to reconcile some of his more mystical talks).
If you’re an analytical type and love learning and exploring new things, Shinzen is a phenomenal teacher.
Potential Weaknesses
Because he’s so comprehensive, it takes a bit of time to familiarize yourself with his terminology and paradigm. But he makes things as simple as possible (but no simpler), so it’s worth the effort.
He emphasizes a certain type of noting/labeling technique that isn’t for everyone, and can be clunky in the start, but many have found it well worth the effort. He also doesn’t emphasize tantric or energy cultivating/activating practices, though you can find him discussing these practices in insightful and well measured ways.
For a Quick Intro - his appearance on the 10% Happier Podcast is a solid intro. Apple podcast link and Stitcher Link (and can search on any podcast platform, it’s episode 64). I also appreciated his appearances on the Buddha At The Gas Pump Podcast, it’s longer and goes more in depth. Links to first and second appearances on YouTube, also available on other podcast platforms.
Getting Into It
You can find a lot of great resources on Shinzen’s Website and also the Unified Mindfulness Website (the organization that teaches Shinzen’s system, does teacher training, and has community groups).
BrightMind App - If you want to dive right in and start meditating right away, there’s no better starting point than the BrightMind app. It makes his teachings extremely accessible and engaging for newbies and seasoned meditators alike. The way the meditations introduce the concepts and build on one another is brilliant. I did an interview with Toby, the guy behind the app, here.
Five Ways To Know Yourself - This is a free 183 page pdf doc that gives a fantastic and straightforward intro to Shinzen’s main ideas. It’s not the most recent doc and some things like his overarching framework (now more inclusive and called ULTRA) and labels used when noting/labeling have been updated (he’s dropped the “in” and “out” parts of the labels), but this is still the most straightforward and complete introduction to his system. It’s a long doc, but it’s not dense. It’s full of charts and clearly defines terms and practices. Honestly fun to explore if you’re into this stuff.
What Is Mindfulness? - This free pdf doc is the most comprehensive answer to the question “what is mindfulness?” out there. It also details the basics of Shinzen’s noting technique. It can be a little dense or technical at times, but a great reference and also great if you’re into the technical stuff.
Core Training - This is a 100% free mini course introducing you to Shinzen’s system. It gives you all the basics.
Science of Enlightenment: How Meditation Works (Book) - This is Shinzen’s only book (aside from a very old book titled Break Through Pain that uses meditation to cope with pain). It’s a great read and tells his story, which is quite interesting and engaging, and also teaches the fundamental aspects of his system. He also talks about a lot of the insights and experiences that changed him, and these are, well, insightful. It’s an engaging read and accessible to absolute beginners, while also insightful for anyone not already familiar with Shinzen’s teachings.
Science of Enlightenment Lecture Series - This came out at least a decade before his book, and it’s epic. These are my favorite talks on Buddhism, awakening, mindfulness, consciousness, mysticism, and the nature of reality. It starts solid, but just gets more and more interesting as it goes. This hooked me on Shinzen. I can’t recommend this series highly enough. If you like insightful mind expanding talks, you can’t do better than these. Note that on audible both this lecture series and his newer book have the same title. This one was published much earlier and has a much longer run time. Either make great starting points, the newer book is a great intro to Shinzen and more beginner friendly, while this one goes off in countless interesting directions and packs a bit more of a punch.
YouTube - Shinzen has two YouTube channels featuring his talks (mostly recorded on retreats), run by different people, both longtime students and accomplished teachers themselves. The channels are Shinzen Videos (run by Stephanie Nash) and Shinzen Young Teachings ~ expandcontract (formerly just “expandcontract”, run by Har-Prakash Khalsa). They are both fantastic resources to explore.
Further Resources - There’s a great facebook community group, where any questions you may have will be answered, likely by Har-Prakash Khalsa who’s been consistently active there for years and has an encyclopedic knowledge of Shinzen’s teachings. Har-Prakash also has a remarkable story of his own awakening on a retreat with Shinzen, and has developed his own teaching style and curriculum that mirrors the precision of Shinzen’s. He also does private coaching which would be the closest thing to being coached by Shinzen himself.
In Conclusion
Shinzen is, for my money, the greatest innovator of meditation and mindfulness in our times. Although he’s not the most popular teacher today, he’s been extremely impactful, and influenced many teachers (I’ve even heard Tara Brach quote Shinzen a few times).
His simple formulation of concentration, clarity, and equanimity has influenced my teaching and understanding of meditation and mindfulness more than anything else. This guy is a treasure and I can’t recommend him highly enough.
If you enjoyed this, be sure to subscribe as I have a lot more amazing teachers I’ll be profiling. You can also support my work on Patreon, where I also do a bi-weekly live stream meditation and discussion group.