Well, I'm here with Joseph Goldstein, who's a, uh, very old friend and, um, quite respected meditation teacher, and we're gonna talk about all things related to meditation and mindfulness. And Joseph and I have known each other for about 25 years, and we, he was one of my first meditation teachers and became, uh, a friend a long time ago.

We spent a lot of time studying with, with other teachers in. He's here, uh, recording this interview with me under less than ideal audio conditions. So we apologize for that. Joseph, for those of you who don't know, started the Inside Meditation Society in Western Massachusetts, and it's probably done more than anyone, uh, certainly as much as anyone to establish.

The practice of mindfulness in the West, and, uh, this explosion of interest you see in mindfulness in the scientific community and in clinical practice, uh, is largely the result of how clearly he and his colleagues have taught it to thousands of westerners. So Joseph and I are gonna talk about mindfulness and the mind in general and probably push into some areas of interest only to us and alienate, uh, 99% of our listeners.

But that's what we are free to do. So Joseph, thank you for being here. And thank you for, uh, agreeing to talk about all this with me. I'm delighted to have a chance to get, get back into the meat of our discussions. Yeah. Which we've had over all these years. Joseph and I have had arguments on just about everything.

Yes. About everything and on, on, uh, transcontinental, uh, flights where he has been captive and desperate to, uh, avoid me, however unsuccessfully. So, uh, before we get into esoterica, tell us a little bit about how you got into meditation and how you, how this became your life's work. Well, I was, um, studying philosophy at.

Columbia University in New York is an undergraduate, and by the time my senior year came around, I was really anxious just to get out and see the world. And this was in 1965 and it was, uh, just soon after the Peace Corps was established. Uh, so that seemed to me a, a really good vehicle for getting out and.

Download Transcript