In this episode, Trudy Goodman speaks with Tyler Lapkin of the Joseph Campbell Foundation.

One of the earliest teachers of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Trudy taught with its creator, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn at the MBSR clinic at University of Massachusetts Medical School in 1983. In 1995 she co-founded, and is still the Guiding Teacher at the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy, the first center in the world dedicated to exploring the synergy of these two disciplines. She was an early adopter and now smiles  seeing mindfulness everywhere.

After becoming a mother, Trudy was fascinated by human development, and studied w Jean Piaget in Geneva, Carol Gilligan, Lawrence Kohlberg, and Jerome Bruner at Harvard. Trudy co-founded a school for distressed children, practicing mindfulness-based psychotherapy with children, parents, teenagers, couples and individuals. She enjoys the company of kids of all ages and has kept her own child-like wonder and curiosity about the world she loves.

Since 1974, Trudy has devoted much of her life to practicing Buddhist meditation with great Asian and Western teachers in the Zen and Theravada traditions. From 1991 to 1998, Trudy was a resident Zen teacher at the Cambridge Buddhist Association. She then moved to Los Angeles and founded InsightLA, the first center in the world to combine training in both Buddhist Insight (Vipassana) Meditation and non-sectarian mindfulness and compassion practices. Trudy has always been a connector of people, spiritual traditions, cultures, and communities, carrying her Zen delight across the divides.

Trudy has trained a new generation of teachers, mindfulness humanitarians who make mindfulness and meditation classes available for professional caregivers, social justice and environmental activists, first responders, teachers, and unsung individuals working on the front lines of suffering – all done with tenderness, courage and a simple commitment to holding hands together.

Trudy conducts retreats and workshops worldwide – from the hallowed halls of Mazu Daoyi’s Ch’an monastery in China, to leading trainings on the ground in the intense heat of Darfuri refugee camps in Eastern Chad on the Sudanese border. She has loved it all. Trudy is still creating new projects and good trouble wherever she can. Details to be found in her forthcoming memoir!

In the conversation today we discuss her life, meditation, mindfulness, and her perspective on the famous Campbell quote, "Participate Joyfully in the sorrows of the world".

To learn more about Trudy visit: https://www.trudygoodman.com/

For more information on the MythMaker Podcast Network and Joseph Campbell, visit JCF.org. 

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The Podcast With A Thousand Faces is hosted by Tyler Lapkin and is a production of the Joseph Campbell Foundation. It is produced by Tyler Lapkin. Executive producer, John Bucher. Audio mixing and editing by Charles Mallett.

All music exclusively provided by APM Music (apmmusic.com)