Jonathan Foust

Jonathan Foust
  • 5.0 (1)
  • BUDDHISM
  • UPDATED TWICE WEEKLY

Senior teacher at the Insight Meditation Community of Washington and co-founder of the Meditation Teacher Training Institute, Jonathan Foust share weekly talks, guided meditations and inquiries that explore how to cultivate an awakened heart and mind.

  1. 20 HR AGO

    Retreat Talk #4: Let's Just Cut to the Chase, Shall We?

    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.

    58 min

  2. 6 DAYS AGO

    An Earth Day Invitation: Take Your Practice Outside With Heidi Schuttenberg

    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/.

    22 min

  3. 6 DAYS AGO

    The Eightfold Path 7: Seeing Clearly to Live Fully

    This talk explores Wise Awareness as the art of seeing life clearly enough to actually live it. So much of human regret comes not from dramatic mistakes, but from drifting through our days half-awake—disconnected from our bodies, driven by unseen reactions, caught in mental weather, and estranged from what matters most. Drawing on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, we'll explore awareness of body, feeling tone, mind, and the deeper patterns of dharma as direct doorways to freedom. Wise awareness is not passive observation; it is precise, embodied, liberating seeing that brings us back to the vividness of this moment and helps us live with greater authenticity, intimacy, and presence.   You'll learn how to ground attention in the body, recognize feeling tone before it hardens into grasping or aversion, identify mind states without becoming trapped inside them, and see the lawful patterns of impermanence, suffering, and not-self unfolding in real time. We'll explore how mindfulness interrupts automatic living and reveals a more deliberate, wholehearted way of being. By the end, you'll have practical ways to deepen awareness in everyday life so that you are not merely getting through your days, but inhabiting them fully—with clarity, freedom, and fewer regrets.

    31 min

  4. 6 DAYS AGO

    Retreat Talk #3: Working with the Hindrances as a Path to Awakening, with Heidi Schuttenberg

    The third talk in a weeklong meditation retreat, with Heidi Schuttenberg.   Our unwelcome visitors are guides to our freedom. This talk explores the Buddha's five hindrances and offers practical tools for meeting them with compassion, curiosity, and even gratitude.   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   / heidi-schuttenberg-1114a658  . Dana: Venmo @Heidi-Schuttenberg

    41 min

  5. 6 DAYS AGO

    Retreat Talk #2: The Alchemy of Difficulty: Turning Reactivity into Freedom

    The second talk in a weeklong retreat.  We often assume insight arises from calm, clarity, or deep concentration. But in truth, it is often born in the very moments we want to escape. This talk invites a radical reframe: what if restlessness, doubt, and emotional turbulence are not problems to solve—but the precise conditions for awakening? Together, we'll explore how mindful investigation transforms reactivity into understanding, and how even the most difficult inner states can become gateways to freedom.   Through practical instruction and reflection, you'll explore how to investigate experience without turning practice into a subtle self-improvement project, how to shift from "my problem" to unfolding process, and how insight naturally gives way to a deep, effortless rest. As understanding deepens, something unexpected emerges—a quiet recognition that nothing needs to be fixed for freedom to be here.

    1hr 4min

  6. 28 MAR

    Retreat Talk #1: Coming Home to the Body, with Lynn Teo

    This is the first talk of a weeklong retreat in 2026.   Lynn Teo starts by exploring various ways to resource the nervous system to support the capacity to be present to the moment's direct experience.  Then, we investigate what mindfulness is and how mindfulness of the body supports present moment awareness.   Lynn Teo has been teaching embodied movement and meditation for over 25 years. Deeply grateful to her teachers, she now teaches in the Insight (Vipassana) Tradition and is a Dharma teacher with Open Door Meditation Community in Portland, Maine. A deep believer in Sangha and belonging, she helps to empower community members (in particular helpers, healers, artists, activists, and people of color) with embodied practices of radical rest, resilience, and trauma/burnout recovery. As a clinician, Lynn combines acupuncture, shiatsu, and Somatic Experiencing ® and specializes in helping patients suffering anxiety, stress, overwhelm, burnout and trauma as well as chronic pain and chronic conditions. Learn more at www.lynnteoacupuncture.com. Dana: Venmo @Lynn-Teo.

    59 min

  7. 28 MAR

    The Eightfold Path, Part 6: How to Do without Overdoing

    This talk explores Right Effort as one of the most misunderstood elements of the Eightfold Path—revealing how much of our suffering comes not from a lack of effort, but from pushing, striving, and forcing ourselves in ways that create inner violence. Drawing on classical Buddhist teachings and everyday experience, the talk reframes effort as a form of care rather than willpower, inviting a wiser relationship to energy, discipline, and motivation in meditation and daily life.   You'll learn how to recognize when effort has tipped into strain, how to stop feeding unhelpful mental patterns, and how to cultivate wholesome qualities without burnout or self-judgment. The talk offers practical guidance for sustaining practice with steadiness and ease, helping you apply energy in ways that support clarity, compassion, and long-term resilience—on and off the cushion.

    33 min

  8. 28 MAR

    Beyond the Witness: From Watching to Being [archive talk]

    This talk explores the power of self-observation and what lies beyond the sense of self. You'll learn how the witness can free you from the tyranny of the mind and your reactivity as well as what can happen when you explore being aware of the witness and what lies beyond.

    48 min
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About

Senior teacher at the Insight Meditation Community of Washington and co-founder of the Meditation Teacher Training Institute, Jonathan Foust share weekly talks, guided meditations and inquiries that explore how to cultivate an awakened heart and mind.

Information

  • Creator
    Jonathan Foust
  • Years Active
    2011 - 2026
  • Episodes
    50
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    Jonathan Foust

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