Life Practice Program (LPP) with Shinzen Young

The Life Practice Program is an online meditation program led by Shinzen Young, a mindfulness teacher and neuroscience research consultant. It is for people who already sit and want to take their practice beyond the cushion, into the rest of daily life. Each session is held online, with Shinzen and a guest joining for that week's program.

What to Expect

The program meets weekly, on Wednesdays, and each session pairs Shinzen with a guest. The emphasis is on bringing meditation into ordinary living rather than keeping it to formal sitting. Because the guest changes, each week has its own flavor, and you can come to one session or follow the series across the year.

Around the weekly program sits a wider set of offerings from the same community. These include the Home Practice Program, a weekend of meditation retreat offerings held from your own home by conference call, led at times by Shinzen and at other times by Unified Mindfulness trainers and coaches. There is also a virtual retreat hosted by Vipassana Support International, and an annual immersion experience in the spring.

About Shinzen Young

Shinzen Young is an American mindfulness teacher and neuroscience research consultant. He is known for Unified Mindfulness, his systematic approach to categorizing, adapting and teaching meditation. That work has led to collaborations in contemplative neuroscience with Harvard Medical School, Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Vermont. He is co-director of the Science Enhanced Mindful Awareness (SEMA) Lab at the University of Arizona.

His interest in Asia began at 14, when he chose to attend a Japanese ethnic school in his native Los Angeles. He majored in Asian languages at UCLA, then entered a PhD program in Buddhist Studies at the University of Wisconsin. For his thesis research he lived for three years as a Shingon (Japanese Vajrayana) monk at Mount Koya, Japan, where he received the name Shinzen.

Before You Go

Everything takes place online, so you can join from wherever you are. The program is framed as a way to deepen an existing practice, so some familiarity with meditation will help you get the most from it. The Home Practice Program weekends run by conference call, which means a phone or computer connection is all you need to take part from home.