ENTERING THE PATH

This course focuses on The Buddhist Path, The Four Noble Truths, The Eightfold Path, Buddhist Teachings on the Self, and the Path of Conduct and Ethics.

We begin at the beginning, by doing the thing that is so hard to do—establish a daily mindfulness (Shamatha) meditation practice.

We will look into what motivates us to transform our way of looking at meditation as more than just a stress-reducing practice, and into an entire life path of study, practice and ACTION where we explore our sense of self, our confusion, and begin to transform our entire understanding of reality.

Ethan Nichtern is a Senior Buddhist teacher, author, and lecturer. For the past 19 years, Ethan has taught meditation and Buddhist psychology classes and workshops around New York City, North America and Europe, along with working with students privately.

He was formerly on the part-time faculty at Eugene Lang College at New School University and has lectured at Brown, Wesleyan, Yale, NYU, FIT, Antioch and other universities, and as well at many other meditation/yoga centers and conferences around the country and world.

Ethan is the author of the acclaimed books The Road Home: A Contemporary Exploration of the Buddhist Path and The Dharma of The Princess Bride: What The Coolest Fairy Tale of Our Time Can Teach Us About Buddhism and Relationships. He is also the author of One City: A Declaration of Interdependence, and the Novella/poetry collection, Your Emoticons Won’t Save You, and his most recent book Confidence: Holding Your Seat Through Life’s Eight Worldly Winds. 

He founded and served as executive director (2007-11) of the Interdependence Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to secular Buddhist practice and transformational activism and arts.

Ethan primarily studied in Shambhala and Tibetan traditions, as well as Theravadan and Soto Zen Buddhism. Ethan is an avid yoga practitioner. He served as Shastri, or Senior Teacher-In-Residence, for the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York from 2010-18.

In 2018, Ethan launched his podcast, The Road Home, available on iTunes and Stitcher.

Ethan has been featured on CNN, NPR, ABC/Yahoo News, The New York Times, Vogue.com, Business Insider, Nautilus, and Vice to discuss Buddhism and meditation in the 21st Century. His articles have been featured on The Huffington Post, Beliefnet, Shambhala Sun, Tricycle Magazine, BuddhaDharma Magazine, and Reality Sandwich as well as other online publications.