The Hidden Truth I Learned as a Monk About Teaching Mindfulness

When I first started teaching mindfulness, I thought I had to sound wise, calm, and enlightened — like a “real” teacher.

But one unexpected moment — in a tiny community room in Berkeley — changed everything I thought I knew about guiding others in mindfulness.

In this episode, I share the hidden truth I discovered after years living as a Buddhist monk in Thailand and training more than 30,000 mindfulness teachers around the world:that teaching mindfulness is actually much simpler than most of us realize.

You’ll hear:

🪶 The surprising moment that transformed the way I teach mindfulness

🪶 A profound lesson from my Thai Forest teacher that changed how I see presence

🪶 The biggest mistake new teachers make — and how to avoid it

🪶 Why your humanity and imperfection are your greatest teaching tools

If you’ve ever wondered, “Who am I to teach mindfulness?” — this episode is for you.By the end, you’ll see that mindfulness teaching isn’t about perfection… it’s about presence.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

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SPEAKER_00: 0:32

You know, when I first started teaching mindfulness, I thought that I had to get everything exactly right. The words, the tone, even the silence between my sentences. But one day something unexpected happened that completely changed the way I teach. And it's something so simple but so powerful that once I understood it, my entire approach to teaching mindfulness shifted. And that's what I want to share with you today. So I'll be unpacking a few things that most mindfulness teachers never really talk about, including a quiet realization that came to me one day in a small room here in Berkeley. And also a strange lesson that I learned sweeping jungle paths as a Buddhist monk in Thailand. I'll also share the one mistake almost every new mindfulness teacher makes, and how the real key to teaching mindfulness has nothing to do with what you actually say. So stay with me because by the end I think you'll see that teaching mindfulness and maybe even living it is much simpler than you think. So let's start with that moment in Berkeley. I was guiding a small group meditation. My heart was pounding because I was nervous. And I was trying to sound wise and calm, like I had been doing this my whole life. I had my notes in front of me, my perfectly prepared script, and halfway through I lost my place and my mind went blank. And for a moment I panicked. Then something inside said, stop trying. So I just said, let's take a breath together. And we did. And for about a minute, no one spoke, no one moved, we were just breathing together. And when I opened my eyes, something in the room had shifted. You could feel it. There was that sense of stillness, sense of safety. You could feel that nervous systems were settling. Maybe even a sense of care, or dare I say love, was opening. And afterward, someone came up to me with tears in their eyes, and she said, John, I don't know what that was exactly, but I feel like I was able to come home to myself. And that was a moment that I learned that was one of the most important truths about teaching mindfulness. And I'll tell you exactly what that truth is in just a second. But um before that realization sank in, I had to unlearn a lot. When I lived as a monk in Thailand, my teacher would sweep the paths at the monastery every single morning before sunrise. And I asked him once why he didn't let the younger monks sweep the path. And he said, Well, when I sweep the path, I'm not cleaning the leaves, I'm cleaning my own mind. And it took me years to understand what he meant. But when I did, it changed how I relate to everyone who I teach. And in the subsequent months, I actually took it upon myself to clean all the toilets as much as I could because I was like, oh, cleaning the toilets must mean that I'm actually going to be cleaning my mind extra good. Um, and I'll share what I discovered in that moment too, but first I want to tell you that the only thing that nearly stopped me from uh ever teaching at all was imposter syndrome. I know a lot of people feel like an imposter as mindfulness practitioners and especially as teachers. Um, because with me, that voice said, Who am I to guide others? I don't sound like Eckhart Tole or Jack Cornfield or Tara Brock. That whisper that says, I'm not calm enough, I'm not wise enough, I'm not experienced enough. And if you've ever felt that, you're not alone. Uh, every new mindfulness teacher that I know has wrestled with that. Uh, but there's something surprisingly beautiful hidden inside that doubt. And once you see it, you'll realize that it's actually not a barrier, it's actually part of the path. Because we want to teach it with integrity and care and authenticity. So uh we're gonna come back to that. But first, I want to come back to that moment in Berkeley. Um, I thought that I had failed because I lost my script. Uh, but what I actually had lost was my need to control, to have everything controlled from the first word to the last word, to be on a pre-scheduled pace and to include all my bullet points that no one else really cared about. Um, but I when I lost my sense of control, I was able to naturally slide in with whatever the moment brought. And in that moment, when I stopped performing mindfulness as this like rigid teacher, and when I was simply mindful, just something in the room came alive. There was a natural fluidity and a sense of safety that we could all do the same thing, and that's the truth that I kind of alluded to earlier, which is that teaching mindfulness isn't really about what you say, it's about what you are while you're saying it. And that uh lesson from my teacher in Thailand about sweeping, it's really the same principle. He swept the leaves, but what he was really doing was practicing presence, showing us that ordinary actions can transmit extraordinary awareness and energy and presence that is a teaching in and of itself. So when we saw him sweep the leaves, it wasn't him getting his chores done, it was him being one thousand percent present, which was a teaching in and of itself. And that brings us back to that imposter syndrome that we all feel, um, and the reason that you feel unqualified to teach mindfulness might be the very reason you're actually ready. It means you're paying attention that you care, that you know mindfulness isn't about perfection, it's about honesty. You don't need to be flawless to guide someone back to their own breath. You just need to be willing to stand in your own humanity and say, Let's practice together. And when we do that, when we let go of trying to sound mindful, and instead when we just embody it, something real shifts. People feel it, people remember it, and that's what changes them. So if you've ever wanted to teach mindfulness but thought you weren't ready, maybe this is your invitation not to perform, not to impress, but to be real. Because when you're truly present, the teaching takes care of itself. And that's something that you can start practicing right now. And if you'd like to take that step into teaching mindfulness, I invite you to our mindfulness meditation teacher certification, where we've guided thousands of people from coaching to counseling and everything in between, and yoga teaching and Reiki hypnotherapy. We've taught people how to incorporate mindfulness into their careers, into their professions, helping others to embody that gentle awareness. So I'll put a link uh in the description below if you'd like to learn more. We'd be honored to welcome you. So, thank you for watching. Thank you for being here, and we hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Thank you very much.