Jonathan Foust

How has your meditation practice shifted and changed since you first took it up?
 
Please join this conversation with Stephen Josephs, who shares how his mediation has evolved over 60 years of daily practice.
 
As one of the leaders in the Kundalini Yoga tradition at it's peak in the west, Stephen was a devoted practitioner in what he calls the 'fire practices,' willful and powerful practices that can dramatically change one's state.
 
But after many years of dedicated effort, the fire started to go out. His practice evolved into what he calls the 'water practices' - techniques and attentional strategies that are more about dissolving the sense of a separate self.
 
In this conversation he shares some of the essential elements of the water practices and we explore that gnarly question: What it is that is actually dissolving?
 
 
You'll come away with some key insights from a depth practitioner and a taste of how the dissolving practices might be of benefit to you.
 
 
 
With over 60 years of daily meditation practice, Stephen Josephs, Ed.D., brings a wealth of wisdom to his work. His expertise spans a diverse array of mind-body systems—including yoga, tai chi, and qigong—as well as specialized training in NLP, psychodrama, and body-centered psychotherapy. This breadth of experience fosters an open-hearted approach that helps students quickly realize the benefits of mindfulness. For the past 40 years, Stephen has focused on leadership development, integrating meditation as a core pillar for executive growth. He is also the co-author of Leadership Agility, a definitive study on how leaders mature and expand their capacity to lead.
 
For more information and to reach out to  Stephen:  https://www.stephenjosephs.com/
 
Teachers and Resources:
Connierae Andreas and Core Transformation:   https://conniraeandreas.com/
Dr. Les Fehmi and Open Focus:  https://openfocus.com/home/
Bruce Frantzis  https://www.energyarts.com/about/

This talk explores the culminating factor of the Eightfold Path—Right Concentration—and the profound power of a steady, unified mind. In a world of constant distraction and fragmented attention, we investigate how deep focus becomes a gateway to inner stillness, clarity, and freedom. Drawing from classical Buddhist teachings and lived experience, this talk reveals how training attention is not just about meditation, but about reclaiming the depth, presence, and aliveness of your entire life.
 
You'll learn how to strengthen and stabilize attention through practical, time-tested methods, how to work skillfully with common obstacles like restlessness and doubt, and how concentration naturally matures from effort into ease. You'll also discover how a steady mind supports insight, emotional resilience, and a deep sense of well-being—opening the door to a more fully lived and awakened life.

This talk explores the movement from doing to being—from the disciplined application of effort to the natural ease of presence. After training attention, stabilizing the mind, and refining investigation, there comes a threshold where practice no longer adds anything, but begins to let go of itself. Through stories, humor, and classical teachings, we'll examine how effort serves us and how clinging to it can quietly become another form of tension. We'll explore how investigation matures into direct seeing, how awareness can rest without collapsing into dullness, and how the deepest freedom emerges not from control, but from trusting the field of awareness itself.
 
You'll learn how to recognize when effort is skillful and when it's simply habitual, how to allow investigation to complete itself without turning it into a project, and how to rest in open awareness with clarity and balance. You'll explore the shift from trying to manage experience to allowing it to unfold, sensing how awareness is already present and functioning without your help. We'll also point toward a deeper trust—how to relax into awareness without drifting, and how to live from this understanding in a responsive, engaged way. By the end, you'll have a felt sense of when to apply effort, when to release it, and how to let practice reveal the freedom that has been here all along.

This talk explores what remains when we stop circling around the edges of practice and face the deepest truths directly. With humor, candor, and a willingness to take the red pill, we'll look at the three characteristics the Buddha pointed to—impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and not-self—and how they shape every human life whether we like it or not. We'll explore how the heart breaks open in the face of change, how our wounds often become the source of our gifts, and how the self we work so hard to protect may be far less solid than we imagine. This is a talk about reality, about freedom, and about what becomes possible when we stop negotiating with what is true.
 
You'll learn how contemplating impermanence can deepen gratitude rather than despair, how dukkha reveals the hidden strategies we use to secure belonging and safety, and how the teaching of not-self can loosen fear at its root. We'll explore the "winning formulas" that shape identity, the ways suffering can become a doorway to wisdom and compassion, and how meditation invites us beyond self-improvement into liberation. By the end, you'll have a clearer way to investigate what is most real, meet the mystery of life more honestly, and sense the freedom that appears when clinging begins to fall away.

The best meditation hall has no walls.
 
This talk explores how nature cultivates focus, non-judgment, and belonging, and how mindfulness can help us stay engaged with the world's pain without burning out.
 
Bio: With 25 years of Vipassana practice and a day job in international marine conservation, Heidi Schuttenberg, PhD brings both deep personal inquiry and real-world urgency to her teaching. She mentors in Jonathan Foust's Year of Living Mindfully and is dedicated to making applied mindfulness available to those on the front lines environmental conservation and social change. Learn more at https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidi-schuttenberg-1114a658/.