Jogen Salzberg, Sensei

Meditation Expert and Parts Work Guide

In this practice, we open our hearts and the energy of openness/love, embracing our whole selves and the selves of others. This loving-kindness meditation is holistic, including the body, mind, and heart. It includes guidance into calm presence, relaxed embodiment, and opening the heart. Obstacles to loving-kindness for oneself and others are also addressed.

Holistic loving-kindness meditation opens hearts, embraces whole selves, and addresses obstacles to self and others with calm presence and relaxation.

PT1 Embodied Loving Kindness Meditation

Part 2 of this practice is where we open our hearts and the energy of openness/love, embracing our whole selves and the selves of others. This loving-kindness meditation is holistic, including the body, mind, and heart. It includes guidance into calm presence, relaxed embodiment, and opening the heart. Obstacles to loving-kindness for oneself and others are also addressed.

Open your heart and embrace yourself and others with a holistic, loving-kindness meditation that includes guidance for calm presence and overcoming obstacles.

PT2 Embodied Loving Kindness Meditation

This body we have can be experienced and lived as a magical dance of energies and spaciousness. It is a living miracle. We will be guided into deep somatic awareness with the qualities of fire, earth, water, wind, and space as the body's ongoing, organic unfolding.

Experience the body as a magical dance of energies and spaciousness, guided into deep somatic awareness with qualities of fire, earth, water, wind, and space.

This Body As The Play of The 5 Elements

Our minds have been shaped by technology and media to be more distracted than ever. But we can regain our ability to focus! Even a little bit of practicing non-distraction, done with some regularity, can give us back our ability to stay focused and attend to the details of our lives.

Technology and media have made us more distracted, but practicing non-distraction regularly can help regain our focus and attention to details.

Non-Distracted Presence Pt 1

The practice of non-distraction continued including guidance into the stillness of mind.

Guidance into stillness of mind for non-distraction practice.

Non-Distracted Presence Pt 2

In this guided meditation, we enter the flow of our body & breath, feeling Being as a river of presence.

A guided meditation where we feel our body and breath, experiencing Being as a river of presence.

Being The Flow Of Feeling

In this meditation, we are guided through our lives from childhood to the present, getting perspective on all we've been through, all the comings and goings, the success and failures, especially all we've learned. In contemplating our lives in this way, a deep letting go opens up as we take in the big picture of our lives as a mysterious, winding river.

Meditation provides perspective on our lives and allows us to let go by viewing our experiences as a winding river.

Zooming Out To The Big Picture

In this guided meditation, we look into the nature of our mind, seeing what thoughts and awareness are made of. In doing so, we directly experience the spacious, transparent nature of the mind and empower a fluid, open state of awareness.

Guided meditation on exploring the nature of the mind to experience a fluid, open state of awareness.

Emptiness of Mind - Discover True Space

Let the body surrender to the earth and melt into deep relaxation with this potent short meditation.

Relax deeply with a short meditation that allows the body to surrender and melt into the earth.

Lying Down Deep Body Melt

In this meditation, you are guided into a delicious relaxation of the body & a receptive, spacious awareness with the sounds wherever you are. The meditation culminates with focusing the mind on the simple repetition of a bell sound.

Meditation guides relaxation & awareness of sounds, culminating with focus on repeating bell sound.

Meditation On Sound For Presence & Peace

In this meditation, you will be guided to use the sensations of sleepiness or drowsiness to enter into absorption in bliss and peace.

Guided meditation to use sleepiness/drowsiness to achieve bliss and peace.

Sleepiness As A Gate To Inner Bliss

In this meditation you will be guided into a deep letting go, forgetting ordinary problems and identity and touching the boundless nature of the body-mind.

Meditation guide helps to forget problems and identity, and touch boundless body-mind nature with deep letting go.

Advanced Letting Go - Edgeless Being

This meditation is perfect for those sleepy, drowsy mornings when you want to meditate before the day gets going but you're a little grumpy and not yet awake!

A morning meditation for sleepy and grumpy individuals looking to start their day with mindfulness.

Sleepiness As An Ally-Morning Meditation

The heart is a reality at 4 different levels: physical, energetic, emotional, and essential. In this meditation, we use touch and directed breathing to open the heart center on the energetic level.

Meditation opens heart center on energetic level using touch and directed breathing.

Opening The Heart On The Energetic Level

Learn to increase awareness & get space from the Inner Critic

Get space from the Inner Critic by increasing awareness.

Bringing Awareness To The Inner Critic

The Inner Critic sometimes, in its painful way, actually points to what we love and value. In this teaching, I offer ways to listen for this and extract nectar from the Critic's poison.

Learn to extract nectar from the Inner Critic's poison by listening to what it points to in what we love and value.

Extracting Love From the Inner Critic

In this teaching, I explore the understanding and experience that we each contain different selves/voices/parts. Some we know and some we don't. Some we like and some we wish were not a part of us! I talk about how we can embrace the self that lives through each of us without taking any one of them as the definitive 'me'. Freedom.

Explore the concept of having multiple selves and how embracing each one without taking it as the definitive 'me' can lead to freedom.

The Selves Inside You - About Parts Work

Sometimes we wonder if life has meaning. What happens when we act as if love was the point of it all? The result feeds the heart.

Acting out of love can give meaning to life and feed the heart.

As If Love Was The Point

In this meditation, you are guided in a vocal toning practice. Utilizing deep breathing and intoning the primal seed syllable, AH, the subtle energy flow in the heart is increased and the residue of heart closure is cleared out.

Increase subtle energy flow in heart with deep breathing and vocal toning of primal seed syllable AH, clearing out residue of heart closure.

PT2 Opening Heart On The Energetic Level

In this Selves Inside talk, I paint a picture of the Pleaser. The Pleaser is that self/voice that is wholly focused on winning the approval of others, doing whatever it takes to be seen in a positive light. When the Pleaser is dominating our behavior, we tend to feel like we are neglecting ourselves and living inauthentically. The good news is that the Pleaser is only one part of us! Knowing it as only a part of us, new possibilities for our life open up.

The Pleaser is a self/voice that focuses on gaining approval from others, leading to neglect of self; understanding it as a part of us opens up new possibilities.

Selves Inside Series - The Pleaser

In this Selves Inside talk, I bring attention to the Perfectionist. It hardly needs a description as most of us know this personality/part very well! The Perfectionist is that part of us never satisfied, always seeing the need and potential for improvement. It is an exhausting thing to have the Perfectionist running our lives. Nothing and nobody is good enough. On the other hand, the Perfectionist is a vital aspect of ourselves because, without the Perfectionist, where would we find the motivation to be our best selves?

The Perfectionist is a common personality trait that can be exhausting, but also vital for motivation and self-improvement.

Selves Inside Series- The Perfectionist

Beginning with a brief talk on anxiety, its reality in our lives & the difference between anxiety & concern, we embark on a guided practice for letting go, grounding, and recognizing the quality of Nowness.

A guided practice for letting go, grounding, and recognizing the quality of Nowness is introduced after discussing anxiety and its difference from concern.

Transforming Anxiety

This mindfulness practice is informed by the needs of individuals with trauma including self-autonomy and awareness of trauma triggers.

Mindfulness practice for trauma survivors prioritizes self-autonomy and recognition of triggers.

Trauma Informed Mindfulness

At the core of the aggressive conflict and divisive discussion is a forgetting of love. We can melt this tendency in ourselves through our inner work. In this meditation, you are gently guided through embracing yourself and all living beings with kindness.

Inner work helps melt aggressive conflict and divisive discussion by embracing oneself and all living beings with kindness in a guided meditation.

Embracing Self And All Beings With Love

The world's meditation traditions discovered that we can take ourselves more lightly by trusting how life lives through us. This meditation guides you through a Zen practice of non-attachment that awakens internal spaciousness.

Meditation teaches us to trust life and guides us through non-attachment, awakening internal spaciousness.

Spaciousness- Lightening The Load

This guided meditation is the essential mindfulness practice of composure. "Embodying non-reactivity widens our comfort zone because situations that used to disturb us do so less and less. When we experience whatever we are experiencing with a gap between stimulus and response, sensation and action, we are in the place of choice, freedom of how we respond to life..."

Guided meditation promotes composure through non-reactivity, providing freedom of choice in responding to life's situations.

Practicing Composure

"Uncertainty is a fact of life. This is the water in which we swim. We live never knowing exactly what will unfold, always on the horizon of a newly dawning moment, a moment that is never fully predictable, ultimately out of our control. The fact of uncertainty alternates between being a source of anxiety or a source of excitement and open-ended possibility for us..."

"Life is uncertain, full of possibilities and unpredictable moments that can cause anxiety or excitement."

The Gift In Uncertainty

In this Selves Inside Series, I talk about The Worrier, the part of us in perpetual anxiety about the things we care about. I offer perspective on The Worrier's way of seeing and being and how we can be less convinced by its' fearful concern. You are not The Worrier!

"Selves Inside Series explores The Worrier, offering perspective on its anxious view and ways to be less convinced by its fearful concern."

Selves Inside Series - The Worrier

In this Selves Inside Series, I talk about the part of us we could call the Rational Knower. The Rational Knower is a mental self that is solution-oriented, sees things in terms of what makes sense, can be/believes itself to be objective and grounded, and is not so much fun when it comes time to connect emotionally, intimately, or be romantic. My hope is you gain some understanding (ha!) of the Rational Knower that allows you to recognize its gifts and limitations while holding it in a larger space of awareness.

The Rational Knower is a solution-oriented mental self that can limit emotional connections, but understanding its gifts and limitations can lead to awareness.

Selves Inside Series- Rational Knower

In this Selves Inside I talk about the part of us that says 'nothing matters' with its accompanying sadness. I discuss how this self might have arisen and the purpose it is trying to fulfill. Within lead, we find gold.

Exploring the inner self that feels like "nothing matters" and its purpose in fulfilling a role in one's life.

Selves Inside Series- 'Nothing Matters'

Everything relaxes in an atmosphere of kindness. The mind can be held in an atmosphere of kindness, too. Sometimes we get irritated by our own minds and end up putting more irritation in our being! This is a practice of Loving Kindness For the Mind that creates a compassionate relationship with this most intimate companion.

Being kind to our minds cultivates compassion and creates a better relationship with ourselves. This is the practice of Loving Kindness For the Mind.

Loving-Kindness For The Mind

The body is not some inert, mechanical meat being moved about by a brain. It's a miraculous living organism, sensitive to how we relate to it and responsive to how we inhabit it. In this meditation, we spark and expand a tenderness and acceptance for the body. We practice a warm loving-kindness that melts an adversarial or judgemental relationship to our own embodiment. That can only be a good thing.

Treat your body with tenderness and acceptance, as it's a responsive and living organism. Practice a warm loving-kindness towards it.

Loving-Kindness For The Body

In this meditation, I unfold an embodied spaciousness where we tap and expand our capacity to be with arising feelings and emotions. We practice the simultaneity of fully consenting to feel and the open freedom of awareness.

Meditation focuses on expanding our capacity to feel emotions while maintaining freedom of awareness.

Spaciousness With Feeling & Emotion

As the future unfolds, the world will benefit from people with the capacity for presence, clarity, and deep feeling. These are some words from my heart about the practices of meditation, mindfulness, and all the different inner work and how those practices are a meaningful and empowering contribution to whatever challenges we may face as individuals and communities.

The world needs people with presence, clarity, and deep feeling to face challenges; meditation and mindfulness are empowering contributions to inner work.

Presence & Facing Climate Crisis

In this Selves Inside I offer a fresh perspective on the Inner Child. Far from a New-Age thing of the past, the Inner Child is the reality of vulnerability, innocence, and playfulness within us all. I address how it interfaces with our adult realities and how we can appreciate, include, and skillfully tend to it.

"Selves Inside explores the Inner Child as a reality of vulnerability and playfulness within us all, offering ways to skillfully tend to it in adulthood."

Selves Inside Series - The Inner Child

In this Selves Inside Series, I talk about the part of us that knows how to simply be. Nature, plant medicines, meditation- many things seem to call it forth and it is such a relief. We get a break from all the attachment to producing, all the hurry to get on to the next thing. The Being selves are our access point to beauty as they know how to stop, open and appreciate. And they aren't dependent on special circumstances! Listen and find out more.

The Selves Inside Series explores the Being selves, which know how to simply be, providing a break from attachment to producing and access to beauty.

Selves Inside Series - The Being Self

If we're always 'up in our heads' we become disconnected from our heart- our capacities for connection, empathy, and love. If we're always seeing through the eyes of the heart we may lose access to our clear-mindedness and discernment and become overwhelmed by emotion. In this talk, I explore the mind and the heart as two modes of being and ways of seeing that are often out of balance in us.

The mind and heart are two modes of being that are often imbalanced; being disconnected from our heart affects our ability to connect and love, while being too empathetic may hinder our discernment.

Head Vs. Heart - An Exploration

In this Selves Inside Series, I talk about The Rebel as a part of us that brings the energy to keep us from being put in a box. It also can rebel for no reason other than a distaste for structure and authority. This part of us can be a blessing and a burden! Tune in to find out more...

The Rebel within us can prevent being confined but can also cause trouble and dislike structure. Learn more in the Selves Inside Series.

Selves Inside Series - The Rebel

There are different understanding of what karma means out there. In this talk, I explain a little bit of the concept from a Buddhist lens and how it is ultimately about how to live in a creative, empowered way.

This talk explores the Buddhist concept of karma and how it can help people live creatively and empowered.

What Is Karma In Buddhism?

It is often said everyone wants peace of mind. But what is that? I present 2 ways that are looked at in Zen Buddhism and how we can begin a Zen approach to finding peace of mind in ourselves.

Two Zen approaches to finding peace of mind discussed in this article.

Peace Of Mind In Zen And Buddhism

Craving is something that is focused on in Buddhism as a source of suffering and unhappiness. Are we being told that we shouldn't have desires or that being without desire is the goal? No. In this talk, I explain how to see the difference between desire, which can be life-giving, and craving, which is often something our life becomes diminished within.

Buddhism distinguishes between desire and craving, recognizing that craving leads to suffering while desire can be life-giving.

Desire Vs. Craving In Zen And Buddhism

Our bodies can be natural sources of simple and profound pleasure- we can focus on and expand the simple pleasure present in our bodies at any given moment. In this meditation, I guide you through my method of locating, expanding, increasing, and allowing yourself to feel deep pleasure in your body.

A meditation to locate, expand, increase, and allow oneself to experience deep pleasure in the body.

Opening To The Pleasure Body

Life is dream-like. This meditation will attune you to that quality of existence. This is a good antidote to stress, rigid inner storylines about who we are, and taking things too seriously. Merrily, merrily, merrily!

Meditation to attune to dream-like quality of life, an antidote to stress, rigid self-concepts and taking things too seriously.

Tracks by Jogen Salzberg, Sensei