Spirit Rock Meditation Center

And it was like, now as I'm telling you this story, I'm thinking to myself, the only other time in my life that this happened was, I went to a meditation retreat in this tradition of mindfulness, and I never left.

And I ended up knowing it and teaching it and being one of the founding people of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and just now stepping down from a leadership role there.

So it was...

Something that I said, yeah, I'll do that.

Hi, thank you for your talk.

I just was reminded in my early days at Spirit Rock 30 years ago when we taught, equanimity was taught, and I think you've done some of that tonight, but it was very, very stressed that equanimity was is a development of the previous one of the horrors.

I remember that very, very clearly, that it doesn't come out of nowhere.

It's a developmental process.

He's a fan favorite.

He trained in the spirit rock IMS tradition, and he leads retreats across the country and the world.

He teaches in schools, juvenile halls, and prisons.

He's also got an online course that he co-teaches and that will be launching in a few weeks.

Just finally, before I actually let you go here.

So I mentioned that you're doing some meditations on the app and you'll be doing some live stuff with us on Tuesdays.

And you've got this course that you do every year with Spirit Rock Meditation Center.

It's called A Year to Live.

And then side by side, your teaching career, I mean, you've seen from the early onset of Western hippies going to India, Burma, Thailand, Sri Lanka, first having access to these themselves, and then you've seen the development of these wider Western institutions.

We talked about Goenka, but there's also obviously the insight models of IMS and Spirit Rock and everything that's come after.

So again, maybe somewhat of a sensitive question, take it wherever you want, but Where do you see the development of where the Western models of Buddhism and meditation practice have come, given that you were there practicing intensively kind of at the outset and maybe even before this whole movement started? Of

course, I'm involved in the movement, so in that respect, I'm not the outsider.

You know, when Buddhism was exported, quote unquote, you know, like 30, 40 years ago with Joseph Goldstein and Jack Hornfield, Sharon Salzberg and others, you know, who brought it from Asia and my teacher, Chan Sumedo, brought it from Asia to the West.

In order to be able to land it at IMS and at Spirit Rock and other centers, it had to be stripped from folklore,

so to say, you know, because people had no tolerance for that.

And they didn't want to learn

Today's guest exemplifies this as David sits down with Dr. Nikki Mirghafori, who is one part Buddhist teacher and one part artificial intelligence scientist.

She's currently serving as a stewarding teacher and board member at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and as a Dharma teacher at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

Alongside her teaching, Nikki has spent years as a researcher and inventor in the field of AI.

She holds multiple patents, has co-authored more than 40 scientific papers, directed international research programs, and advised many Silicon Valley startups.

I remember doing a – at one point I did a big – I really went into Vipassana deeply for a while.

And I was living in America at that point and went to Spirit Rock.

And I did lots of forgiveness work with Jack Kornfield.

And really it was a powerful journey.

A number of years ago,

Andrea and I were teaching at Spirit Rock in one of the winter retreats.

Do you remember when we went to the beach? We went to the beach, we had a day off, or part of a day off, and it was windy, and there had been a big storm at sea, I think, and big waves went to Ocean Beach at San Francisco.

And there were these huge waves There's a lot of foam and there were these huge blocks, you know, like the size of a couch.

Please visit Segorote Land Trust, you can Google them, to learn more about how to support this community.

I'm spiritually grounded at the East Bay Meditation Center, Spirit Rock, Kehillah Synagogue, Shana Tova, and all places that believe we should be safe, treated with dignity, grounded in self-compassion, and free to be our own authentic selves.

Joining us shortly is my special guest, Mag Gallo.

And before we begin, please join us in a pause.