Gena Bean
is the director of Mindful Boston, and the principle member of Forum Level 5.
As said on her short-intro page, Gena Bean is currently producing spoken-word meditation albums and podcasts. These audios are distributed it through Mindful Boston’s membership programs.
The following page describes her teaching methodology, and then gives an overview of her mindfulness education.
Meditation Teaching, And Learning
Gena has been officially teaching meditation students since 2004, drawing on her practice that began in the late 1980's. She designs the studio curriculum at Mindful Boston to be a support for "stick-to-it-iveness," helping the student to develop sustainable practices for a lifetime of benefits.
For over 35 years, Gena has been learning from communities that include meditation as part of their search for meaning. Her education has happened at a number of ashrams, monasteries, communes, a medical school, a clown school, and a lot of time sitting around bonfires.
You’ll notice laughter…
You'll find subtle jokes in between the silences of Gena’s meditation recordings. Her infectious humor springs from direct experiences of the poignant downs, as well as the exuberant ups, of longer-term meditation practice. As is often said in mindfulness/MBSR circles, this stuff is way too important to be taken too seriously.
Question: “why not focus more on apps or zoom?”
Gena’s answer:
Current offerings
Mindful Boston offers something more, something that apps can’t. Scattered apps or youtube videos give a fractured experience of meditation. Our training pathway is a more complete approach.
I’m glad that apps are offering their services, so that our members at Mindful Boston can use those apps in addition to our own libraries of guided content. They are not our ‘competition’ they are our colleagues in offering something the world needs.
A different emphasis
As a teacher, and as the director of Mindful Boston, I emphasize more comprehensive skills-building. I have designed the Mindful Boston trainings around contemplative inquiry. Our community building services are complementary to the services of the apps or zoom rooms, and give a better pathway toward sustainable long-term practice.
Question: “what does being a meditation teacher mean to you?”
Gena’s answer:
Being a meditation teacher means doing the very thing that I prescribe to students in class. If I ask my student to do something, it’s because I have been doing it myself, usually for a long time, and I have seen the results of the work show up in my own life.
A search
Like many humans, I’ve been on a search to address my human needs and the painful parts of my life for a long time, probably the whole time. I started searching for contemplative practices in my teenaged years. Meditation practice is the best way I’ve found to address the downs and ups in real life.
Ups and downs
I have dedicated most of my adult life to the study of meditation and other contemplative practices. I’m still learning, and still messing up, sure. And I’m still getting up and starting over again. Because there’s no end to studying this topic, it is never a finished thing. And yet, I’ve never found a better use for my time.
Question: “why did you found Mindful Boston?”
Gena’s answer:
Quick fixes vs infrastructure
I have found that being invested in a sustained meditation practice is a worthy pursuit.
In the magazines and blogs, there are “short-and-easy-quick-fix” meditations being advertised. I’ve tried them. And, meh. Some of them are pleasant, most of them are diverting, yet all of those kinds of pop-culture-remedy had leaks in their structure. I don’t find short-term bandaids as worthwhile as sustained practice. Meditation itself is not a cure-all, even though magazines are advertising it that way.
I wanted to offer a different approach to meditation skills-building.
That’s why I develop Mindful Boston’s programs to have a strong infrastructure as a studio, a school, for meditative arts. I have benefited from this work so much that it was natural to want to share it. The pop culture stuff can water down the teachings. A school structure can keep the active ingredients stronger.
Sustained and sustainable
From direct experience I’ve found that these modalities are best done in the good company of friends. That’s why I work hard at building community, it’s one of the active ingredients of the school. I invite you to join me in this work by using the forum community pages.
Contextual meanings
Our forum discussions and community building events are important complimentary offerings. They enrich and bring context to any of the one-off meditations you might find on youtube or in the phone apps.
Question: “how did you get started, and what’s your training?”
Gena’s answer:
Briefly…
When I was a teenager, I was in pain. And the adults in my life were not helping.
So I started a search for answers. Really, it was a search for meaning.
I was lucky enough to be in the New England area. From the Transcendentalists’ farms, to all the universities and museums, to simple coffeehouse chats around town, there is access to a history of people coming together to search for meaning.
That’s the short answer.
The more detailed answer
Below is a timeline/resume of my meditative studies.
This is what I’ve found in my search, so far. These are the lineages that have supported and enlivened me as human, and as a meditation teacher.
Contemplative Arts Resume
For this overview I’ve included links to my main teachers, and I’ve pointed to the foundations/lineages of their practices. The role of embodied teacher is essential for authentic practice.
Decade 1
Starting in the mid 1980’s, my first meditations were creative visualizations within new age types of settings. The audio cassette tapes (!) from Shakti Gawain were an assist in those early days of meditation. The first ten years of my practice were an erratic come-and-go love affair that included many lineages, cassette tapes, and pantheistic contexts.
Decade 2
My second decade of practice was spent mainly at Kripalu Yoga Center in Western Massachusetts. Sudha Lundeen, as a legacy teacher at Kripalu, embodies a connection to the Kripalu lineage for me. I still study with her when I can. Kripalu has roots in Hinduism.
Decade 3
For my third decade of practice I focused in on the MBSR program. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. This lineage of teaching was founded by Jon Kabat-Zinn based on roots in Buddhism and also roots in the medical Hippocratic Oath.
I studied with Jon Kabat-Zinn, live in the flesh, for a number of programs at the University of Massachusetts Medical School’s Center for Mindfulness that he founded.
At other locations, I completed three different 10-day silent retreats and a 30-day silent retreat, in addition to weekend programs.
Other threads
Concurrent with the overlapping and continued studies of Kripalu Yoga and MBSR, I’ve had other influences. The most significant have been:
The live teachings and performances of Stephen Jenkinson, within the lineage of Brother Blue’s street ministry.
The books, and the live teaching of Susun Weed at her land near Woodstock, NY. Her lineage is a form of traditional herbalism called the Wise Woman Way.
The live teachings of Bernie Glassman at his land near Montague MA, and his books once he died, within the lineage of the Zen Peacemakers Buddhist order.
Decade 4
Now, in my fourth decade of practice, the constructs forming around the business of Mindful Boston are creating new meanings for this work as a life-long practice.
In my current studies, Forum Level 5 at Mindful Boston is made up of senior teachers that I rely on to keep me studying and growing. Having peers who are willing to lovingly call me on my sh-t is essential for staying in alignment with all that I value.
Book Jacket
If there were a “dedication page” on the bookjacket of Mindful Boston’s evolution, I would need to especially thank Rick Schneider, Marco DiScipio, Sunada Takagi, Shirronda Almeida, and Jackie Cefola for staying with me and the Mindful Boston community through the last decade, and also for holding an intention for the decades to come.