Meet The Instructor
Bio
Ranga sees meditation as playing with perception. We can learn how to adjust perception, and therefore experience, towards more enjoyment, strength, and freedom. Meditation can open doorways to immense joy and pleasure. You can learn how to shift into a higher happiness and dwell in it.
He began his training with formal meditation practice at age 10 and has been on a journey of discovery ever since. After years of climbing the corporate ladder and later co-founding startups, he has shifted his career towards sharing his enthusiastic approach to meditation practice.
Ranga's teaching style entails bringing the ancient wisdom of the Buddha to the modern ear, through personal stories and contemporary similes. Rather than offering a singular, rigid view, he believes that we each hold the authority to find our authentic path in life and to deeply free ourselves up from worrying, anger, doubt, dullness, and a sense of lacking. As such, he approaches his role as a teacher with an open heart; open to all the particularities, experiences, and uniqueness of each student.
He draws on over 20 years of meditation practice and a lifetime of learning from Buddhist (and a few Daoist) meditation masters to guide friends on their personal journeys toward what they yearn for.
My Journey with Meditative Bliss
I have had a heck of a 30 year journey exploring the physical bliss that arises through meditation and open-heartedness. Many misconceptions were taught to me and many mistakes were made. I hope this video brings you clarity!
When I was eleven years old, my friends and family packed into a rented van and took a long road trip to The Bhavana Society, a meditation center in West Virginia. The kids were crammed into the back of the van, and we had a blast playing all the classic 90's road trip games - I spy, the alphabet game and of course, making fun of the music that the adults were listening to.
When we got there, we had to settle down and behave ourselves. It is safe to say that all of us, adults and children included, begrudgingly entered the meditation hall, wondering how long we would have to sit silently, listening to the monk who was waiting to receive us.
What happened next could not have been anticipated. The monk began to speak, and what he shared changed my life.
He presented a revolutionary view of the world - one that ran against the current of the stream. It was a radical notion that meaningfulness, fulfillment and all of our deepest desires are to be found within, rather than in external things. The real work for us to do as human beings, he contended, lies inwards. The mind itself could be developed and conditioned towards more pleasure, more love and more freedom. He pointed to an incredible capacity within our hearts to live free from the bonds of suffering. Through the mind, a heavenly abiding could be built and enjoyed.
I started to see that we could spend our lives tending only to external things - our careers, finances, relationships - and never quite arrive at a sense of deep appreciation, because appreciation is not dependent on external things; it depends on the mind. Success, celebrity and praise - the coin of the modern realm - can do little to free ourselves from agitation, doubt and anxiety.
My Story
The monk then offered an even more disruptive idea that instead of trying to improve our surroundings through money and persuasion, one could play with perception itself, and develop perceptual skills, which in turn leads to an elevated experience of the world.
These teachings cooled my preoccupations and anxieties. I felt refreshed. A deep transmission had occurred.
A gift had been given to me - one more precious than any other I would receive. These words set me on a path that has led to a lifetime of learning, Dharma practice, and to this moment, allowing me to share what I have found most valuable in life to you.
—Ranga Jayawardena, Founder