Teachers

Learn from some of the best meditation teachers alive

The Pioneers of Modern Mindfulness

Joseph Goldstein: A Leading Meditation Teacher Since the 70’s

Joseph is one of the most respected meditation teachers in the world -- a key architect of the rise of mindfulness in our modern society -- with a sense of humor to boot.
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In the 1970's, he co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) alongside Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield. Since its founding, thousands of people from around the world have come to IMS to learn mindfulness from leading mindfulness teachers in the field. Joseph has been a teacher there since its founding and continues as the resident guiding teacher. His teachings often emphasize the importance of maintaining meditation and mindfulness in daily life.
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"Meditation is simple, but not easy" - Joseph Goldstein.

Sharon Salzberg: Sharing Mindfulness and Lovingkindness

A towering figure in the meditation world. Sharon Salzberg is a prominent teacher & New York Times best-selling author. She has played a crucial role in bringing mindfulness and lovingkindness practices to the West.

Sharon co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) alongside fellow influential meditation teachers Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield and is the author of nine books, including Lovingkindness, Real Happiness, and Real Love.  Sharon lives in New York City and teaches meditation and mindfulness around the world.

George Mumford: The Athlete's Guide to Mindfulness

George is a world-renowned meditation teacher and the author of "The Mindful Athlete." He has worked with some of the best professional athletes in the world, including Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan, and Kobe Bryant during their championship runs.
In the early nineties, George collaborated with Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn to create the Inner City Stress Reduction Clinic, a free mindfulness-based stress reduction program for lower-income, inner-city participants. In more recent times, George has worked as the meditation coach of the New York Knicks and consults with professional athletes around the world.

Jeff Warren: Meditation for Every Mind

Jeff is an incredibly gifted meditation teacher. He's trained in multiple traditions, including with renowned teacher Shinzen Young. Jeff is the co-author of NY Times Bestseller "Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics," and the founder of the Consciousness Explorers Club, a meditation adventure group in Toronto.
He has a knack for surfacing the exact meditation that will help everyone he meets. "I have a meditation for that" is regularly heard from Jeff, so we've dubbed him the "Meditation MacGyver."

JoAnna Hardy: Bringing Meditation to All

JoAnna Hardy can talk about meditation to pretty much anybody. She not only teaches in traditional environments like meditation retreat centers, but also in both schools and jails. JoAnna has been studying meditation for nearly two decades and she's done some amazing work ensuring that the practice is available to people who might not otherwise have access to it.
JoAnna teaches at the Insight Meditation Society, at Spirit Rock, and is a Founding Member of The Meditation Coalition.

Alexis Santos: Leading the Insight Meditation Community

Alexis has practiced and taught Insight Meditation in both the East and West since 2001. He has been a long-time student of Sayadaw U Tejaniya (a well respected meditation teacher in Burma whose teachings have attracted a global audience), and his teaching emphasizes knowing the mind through a natural and relaxed continuity -- a style of practice that's particularly useful during our crazy lives.
Alexis has completed the Spirit Rock/IMS Teacher Training, teaches retreats across the globe, and currently lives in Portland, Maine.

Anushka Fernandopulle: Meditation Consultant and Leadership Coach

Anushka teaches meditation, works as an organizational consultant, and does leadership coaching with individuals and teams. She has practiced meditation for over 25 years, including four years in full-time intensive training in monasteries and retreat centers in the US, India and Sri Lanka.
Her work is informed by a BA in anthropology/religion from Harvard University, an MBA from Yale focused on leadership and organizational behavior, and certification in coaching from the Coaches Training Institute.

Sebene Selassie: Buddhist Meditation Teacher and Expert

Growing up, Sebene felt like a big weirdo. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and raised in white neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., she was a tomboy Black girl who loved Monty Python and UB40. She never believed she belonged.
Thirty years ago, she began studying Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy as an undergraduate at McGill University where she majored in Comparative Religious Studies. Now, Sebene is a meditation teacher, author, and speaker who teaches that meditation can help us remember our inherent sense of belonging, that our individual freedom affects absolutely everyone and everything, and that our collective freedom depends on each and every one of us.
Sebene is a three-time cancer survivor of Stage III and IV cancer.

Oren Jay Sofer: Meditation Teacher and Leader in Nonviolent Communication

Growing up, Sebene felt like a big weirdo. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and raised in white neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., she was a tomboy Black girl who loved Monty Python and UB40. She never believed she belonged.
Thirty years ago, she began studying Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy as an undergraduate at McGill University where she majored in Comparative Religious Studies. Now, Sebene is a meditation teacher, author, and speaker who teaches that meditation can help us remember our inherent sense of belonging, that our individual freedom affects absolutely everyone and everything, and that our collective freedom depends on each and every one of us.
Sebene is a three-time cancer survivor of Stage III and IV cancer.

Jessica Morey: Engaging the Youth in Meditation

Jess Morey is the executive director and lead teacher of Inward Bound Mindfulness Education which runs in-depth mindfulness programming for youth, and the parents and professionals who support them across the US, and internationally.

She began practicing meditation at age 14 on teen retreats offered by the Insight Meditation Society (IMS), and has maintained a consistent commitment to meditation since. Diving head first into meditation at such a key developmental stage makes the revelatory perspective of mindfulness & compassion her natural home turf, and gives her an easy, conversational teaching style anyone can relate to.

Diana Winston: Teaching the Science of Mindful Awareness

Diana Winston is the Director of Mindfulness Education at UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center where she also teaches mindfulness practices to the general public.

Her easy-on-the-ears west coast style rests on top of a rigorous scientific mind, and a vast amount of teaching experience. She has developed curriculum and taught mindfulness since the early 90’s in a variety of settings including hospitals, universities, corporations, non profits, and schools. She has taught mindful awareness to health professionals, leaders, teachers, activists, seniors, and adolescents in the US and Asia. A published researcher and author, Diana has also written for numerous meditation publications, where her daughter, Mira, often makes an appearance in her examples of bringing mindfulness to daily life.

Jay Michaelson, Ph.D.: Meditation Teacher of Many Talents

Dr. Jay Michaelson is the Editor of Wisdom Content at Happier, the author of six books on meditation, and, in his “other career,” the legal affairs columnist for The Daily Beast. Jay is an ordained rabbi and authorized to teach in a Theravadan Buddhist lineage. Jay has been a lawyer, a professor, an LGBTQ activist, and the founder of three nonprofit organizations.

Jay’s newest book, Enlightenment by Trial and Error, will be published in October, 2019.

Judson Brewer, Ph.D.: Mindfulness for Modern Challenges

A psychiatrist and internationally known expert in clinical mindfulness training, Jud has developed and tested novel mindfulness programs for addictions, including smoking cessation and overeating. He has also studied the neural mechanisms of mindfulness using standard and real-time fMRI, and is translating these findings into clinical use. (Translation: he knows his stuff.)

Jud is the Director of Research at Brown University Mindfulness Center, one of the leading meditation research institutes in the world.

David Vago, Ph.D.: On the Leading Edge of Science and Meditation

A Cognitive Neuroscientist by training, Dr. David Vago has been instrumental in developing leading edge science around meditation and the brain. He also has close to 20 years of experience with practicing and teaching mindfulness, including with renowned meditation teacher Shinzen Young. He has a number of research initiatives that are ongoing, including Mapping the Meditative Mind.

Dave is research director of the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine and director of the Contemplative Neuroscience and Integrative Medicine (CNIM) Laboratory at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Matthew Hepburn: From Insights to Action

Matthew Hepburn is a straightshooting, clear thinking, and dedicated meditation teacher. His personal practice caught fire over the course of several extended meditation retreats in his early twenties, and for the last 5+ years he has been teaching meditation at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center in Boston, MA.

Matthew is currently a participant in the four-year Insight Meditation Society Teacher Training Program, where he studies with renowned meditation teachers including Joseph Goldstein.

Cory Muscara: From Buddhist Monk to Renowned Meditation Teacher

Cory Muscara admits he first tried meditation because he wanted to impress his college girlfriend -- but it changed his life forever. Muscara, an econ major who considered a finance career, switched gears and spent six months practicing mindfulness meditation as a Buddhist monk.

Afterward, Cory completed numerous meditation training programs and eventually became the founder and head meditation teacher of the Long Island Center for Mindfulness, bringing meditation into school, healthcare, and corporate settings.

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Questions? We’ve got answers.

How can I download the Happier app?

If you don't yet have the app on your iPhone, iPad or Android device yet, download it for free from Apple's App Store or the Google Play store and create a free account. We don't have this available for computers so if that's what you want to work on, check out our Help Center article Happier on a Computer.

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What is Happier and how did it get started?

Happier is an award winning app created to help you be a stronger, happier you — day in and day out, in good times and during the rough times. We have a library of resources in the app and elsewhere that have been curated to help you explore questions like:

  • What the heck does it mean to be mindful?
  • How do I meditate?
  • What will meditation do for me? Can’t I just, “be mindful?”
  • Will you help me practice meditation in a way that fits with my life and still helps me feel better?
  • This is really interesting and helpful for me, how do I go deeper and find out more?

We got started in the general wellness business back in 2014, then started to collaborate with Dan Harris who wrote the book, Happier. Now we have an app full of curated meditations, lessons, and content that continues to evolve based on our community’s needs, an amazing podcast with deep conversations about the way meditation and mindfulness show up in life for others, a weekly newsletter, and a website that’s chock full of resources.

How is Happier priced?

Happier has two levels of access, free and subscribed.

  • An app subscription gives you access to everything in the app! Our two main subscription options are annual at $99.99USD/year and monthly at $14.99USD/month.
  • The app is free to download and with a free account you get two Courses, The Basics and The Dalai Lama’s Guide to Happiness plus over 50 guided meditations.

What types of meditation and mindfulness practices does Happier offer?

This is a great question and there are two parts to the answer.

Meditation

The main type of meditation taught in the app is based in a practice called Vipassana which, it’s believed, is the kind of meditation taught by the Buddha. So we want to acknowledge the roots of what we’re doing and our gratitude to all the teachers who came before and kept this knowledge vibrant and evolving.

Several modern teachers, including Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein, went and studied with teachers in Asia and and returned to start a tradition here that’s called Insight Meditation.

No matter what we name it, this kind of meditation involves paying close attention to an anchor or focus point. It’s often the breath but it can be all kinds of sensations and the app includes variations like:

  • Breathing
  • Sound Meditation
  • Open Awareness Meditation
  • Body Scan
  • Walking Meditation

Meditation can also help us train our minds to have new patterns like:

  • Loving-Kindness
  • Concentration

Mindfulness

We practice meditation, paying attention, so we can be more mindful because being mindful can help us build internal strength to deal with life. If you’re wondering what the difference is between meditation and mindfulness, check out this article, Mindfulness vs Meditation.

When we talk about mindfulness at Happier we mean being aware of what’s going on in and around us right now — and trying not to judge it. Once you get used to paying close attention while you’re formally meditating, it gets easier to play close attention to things throughout your day.

The app will help you incorporate mindfulness into lots of spots in your day! From putting on your pants to drinking your coffee, from talking to a friend or co-worker, driving, eating or falling sleep, the app has guided meditations and content to support you. Then you get to play with it and see where else you can be mindful!

Who are the teachers and experts behind Happier?

In addition to the long line of teachers who’ve brought mindfulness meditation through the 2,000+ years from the Buddha to today, Thank You!, Happier is indebted to folks like Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein and Jon Kabat-Zinn who were some of the champions of Insight Meditation in the west. We mostly teach this kind of meditation at Happier although there are other influences that compliment Insight Meditation and are also included in the app.

On staff we have a group of highly trained meditation teachers and practitioners who really walk the walk! This team manages our pedagogy and finds other trained and experienced meditation teachers, mostly with 10 years of teaching experience or more, to record content for you.

Among the teachers who record meditations for you to use in the app, you’ll find diverse voices and perspectives — because mindful meditation is available to everyone.

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Can beginners use Happier?

Definitely! Beginning meditators are welcomed at Happier. We’ve created courses and meditations to meet you wherever you are in your journey with mindfulness meditation — from never ever to long time meditators.

If you’re just getting started, try courses like The Basics I and II, Common Questions and Essential Advice. You can also explore single guided meditations that help you bring mindfulness into your daily routine like On The Way To Work.

As soon as you start, you’re a meditator! And when you’re ready to go deeper, there’s plenty to practice. The app’s build to help you along your journey and you can email support@happierapp.com with questions.

What kind of resources does Happier have for dealing with stress, anxiety, and other challenges?

When you practice mindfulness meditation, you practice getting to know your own mind and its habits so you can approach all of life’s emotions with strength — even the messy and the imperfect! There are lots of resources in the app that help you specifically practice handling stress, anxiety plus lots of other life challenges, from difficult people to pain, from anger to aging.

In a quick search of the app for stress or anxiety you’ll find 3 courses, over 80 guided meditations and over 200 podcast episodes and Talks. Here’s just a small sample:

Courses

  • Taming Anxiety This course will increase your ability to cope with challenging situations. You’ll learn tools for examining and overcoming your own particular anxiety feedback loop, while building the skills of mindfulness, compassion, and bravery along the way.
  • Phrases for Stress Sometimes just remembering a few meaningful words can help you set yourself up for success. In this course, you’ll learn simple phrases that will help you cut through unhelpful mental chatter and reduce stress.
  • Stress Better You can’t change the fact that life is stressful, but you can change how you respond to it. We’ve brought together some of the world’s top stress-reduction experts to offer you practical tools to bounce back from stress with more clarity, perspective, and energy to move you toward your goals.

Guided Meditations

  • Self-Kindness for Stress Being kind to ourselves in hard times bolsters our resilience, so we can learn from setbacks rather than getting stuck in rumination.
  • Stress in the Body Explore the places where you hold stress in the body, and use guided techniques to cultivate more ease and relaxation.
  • Stepping Back from Stress Taking a bigger perspective and staying grounded in the body helps us experience life’s inevitable stress without being taken over by it.
  • Reduce Anxiety, Build Resilience Build your capacity to prevent overwhelm by feeling the anxious sensations in your body while staying anchored in what feels ok right now
  • Soothe Stressful Thoughts Relieve your anxiety by exploring the relationship between stress and thinking while learning to break unhealthy habit loops.

Podcasts | Talks

How can I download the Happier app? Download the Happier App.

You can use the Happier app on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple Watch and Android mobile devices.

Download the free Happier app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play store.

Happier isn’t available through a web browser or on desktop computers. Please check out our Help Center article Happier on a Computer for more information on the content you can access through the web.