Meditation Practices Brought To You By

Dr. Jerome Freedman

I began meditating many years ago while in graduate school at the University of Chicago.

I studied with some well-known and less well-known teachers over the years.

My first root teachers were Swami Rama of the Himalayas and his chief disciple, Dr. Arya, now Swami Veda Bharati.

From Swami Rama, I learned mantra meditation, which is repeating a sound or phrase to yourself as you meditate.

From Dr. Arya, I learned the basic practices of how to enter into meditation and deep relaxation. I still use these today and teach them to my students.

I am totally grateful for all I’ve learned from Swami Rama and Swami Veda Bharati!

One of my first classes was the Silva Mind Control course and then I found somehow and studied with Jose Silva’s teacher, Father Eli.

Father Eli, my second root teacher, was a mysterious man trained in Eastern and Western wisdom traditions including Zen with D. T. Suzuki after WWII. He taught me so much and I am eternally grateful.

A real critical breakthrough in my life came when I spent two summers with Father Eli in the Ozark mountains in Arkansas. He not only taught me how to do guided meditation. He also trained me to teach it to other people. I have been doing this ever since!

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

My next root teacher was Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (aka Osho). I spent four months in India on retreat at his ashram and learned to do chaotic meditation. It was a very intense experience.

In spite of what you have read about Osho, he was a wonderful teacher and I am greatly indebted to him for just about everything in my life.

You see, Mala, my wife, also spent a lot of time with him and we are together because we shared a common love for him when we began living together.

Through my connection with Bhagwan, I then met Gabrielle Roth who helped me continue dancing away my problems. We put on an event in honor of Bhagwan for 250 people. Then she moved to New York.

By 1984, I had taken the three refuges of Buddhism and called myself a Buddhist. In search of a teacher, I connected with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, whom I had heard about while being a half-minded social activist against the war in Vietnam.

My meeting with him was very auspicious and I have since become a member of his Order of Interbeing. I have been to Plum Village (his home in southern France) twice and was honored to have breakfast with him in his room.

Six Root Teachers – Drawing by Jerome Freedman

Thay, as he is known by his followers, continues to inspire me every day and I am totally grateful. I hope to be able to contribute significant sums of money to his goal to accomplish an ethical society with mindful consumption.

In 1990, I became a Certified Teacher of the Enneagram in the Oral Tradition with Helen Palmer. It was at one of the final retreats in the certification program that one of my fellow students mentioned tennis as a way to practice conscious conduct. A light went off in my brain and I resumed playing tennis after a hiatus of 20+ years.

In 2001, I began the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Training with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach and certified in 2023. During this period, I trained with David Treleaven in Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness, Russ Hudson in Keys to the Enneagram and Enneagram and Creativity.

Now my practice consists of morning meditation every day and mindful walking four to five times a week. Most mornings, I practice the four “touchings of the earth” with gratitude and respect: the three jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha), my blood family (my wife, three children and their spouses, and my graddaughter born in 2019), my spiritual ancestors (listed above and including Anna Halprin), and my land ancestors here in Miwok territory.

I facilitate Mindfulness in Healing at the Pine Street Clinic in San Anselmo on Wednesday nights (now on zoom). I started the group during the summer solstice of 2009 to inspire people to use meditation practices and mindfulness to take charge of their lives and healing experience.

I am the author of seven books and six guided meditations. You will find them here. My new book, How to Use Mindfulnees to Be Happy! is not yet released but coming soon after my showcase event on June 23, 2023. Click here to register. I am a contributing author of I Am With You: Love Letters to Cancer Patients, Nancy Novak, PhD, and Barbara K. Richardson.

I served on the Board of Directors of the Marin AIDS Project and the Advisory Council of the Institute for Health and Healing between 2007 and 2010. In 2019 and 2020, I served as a patient advocate for the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) and a presenter at the 2022 Bladder Cancer Summit. I am a contributor to the Earth Holder Sangha – the Plum Village climate response community – as an activist promoting earth protection and presented at the Earth Holder Retreat at Deer Park Monastery in 2016. I was a former technical advisor for Operation Diana, an NGO dedicated to the survival of elephants in Africa.

I have a Ph. D. in computer science, along with two master’s degrees in physics and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. I interviewed Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson on cosmology and Buddhist thought in 2011. An excerpt of my book, Cosmology and Buddhist Thought: A Conversation with Neil deGrasse Tyson appeared on the Lion’s Roar website. I was interviewed on the Artfully Mindful Podcast by Don Thompson which you can watch here.

I have designed and contributed to a several websites that support mindfulness practices around the world. These include the website for the 30th Anniversary of Plum Village and the Thich Nhat Hanh Sangha Support website for Northern California.

Meditation Practices

There are four main objectives for Meditation Practices. These are:

1. to bring the latest meditation news and videos to you in one place so you don’t have to go looking around the net yourself
2. to provide you with meditation practices that will help you to reduce stress, anxiety, worry, and other suffering and foster a sense of well-being
3. to offer quotes from teachers of meditation practices from around the world from various traditions
4. to inspire mindfulness, concentration, and insight into living your life just as it is.

Some of my favorite topics include

• Mindfulness in healing which means inspiring people to take charge of their own healing in a mindful way.
• The neuroscience of meditation and other research into the scientific bases of meditation.
• Cosmology, Buddhist thought and the nature of interdependence.
• Mindful consumption.

By the way, if you get a chance, please sign The Declaration of Interdependence!

Other themes and purposes are implied within the framework of the articles on meditation practices. In many cases, insights into the nature of reality are provided for your to ponder and decide for yourself if they are true for you as well.

Your participation is highly encouraged through comments on the posts and sharing through social media.

You are welcome to contact me directly through the contact form.

Thank you for visiting Meditation Practices.