Host

The Garrison Institute co-founder, urban visionary and award-winning author Jonathan F.P. Rose.

Guest

Sharon Salzberg is a world-renowned meditation teacher and bestselling author, widely credited with helping bring mindfulness and loving-kindness meditation to the West. With over four decades of teaching experience, including co-founding the Insight Meditation Society, Sharon’s work spans retreats, workshops, and collaborations with frontline workers, caregivers, and trauma survivors. She is the author of Real Happiness and several other influential books.

Transcript

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00:00-04:00 Sharon’s early life & first trip to India. Sharon recounts her years at SUNY Buffalo during the Vietnam era, how an Asian philosophy course awakened her to suffering and meditation, and her decision to use an independent‑study grant to travel to India in 1971.

04:00-06:30 Learning from her teachers. She describes meeting SN Goenka and other meditation teachers in India, and her deep commitment to direct, practical instruction rather than purely philosophical study. 

06:30-11:00 Co-founding the Insight Meditation Society (IMS). Back in the U.S., Sharon and her colleagues, including Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield, founded IMS — launching what would become one of the West’s most influential meditation centers.

11:00-17:14 Defining true compassion. Sharon explores what genuine compassion is (beyond sentimentality), describing it as “a trembling of the heart” and a “movement toward” suffering, accompanied by freedom rather than coercion.

17:14-20:49 Compassion fatigue & caregivers. She discusses her work with frontline caregivers — nurses, social workers, refugee camp workers — and how many of them deeply care for others but neglect their own needs.

21:49-23:00 The ABCs of Care. Sharon outlines the structure of the Care for Caregivers program she co-created with Diana Rose at the Garrison Institute: Awareness, Balance, and Connection. She emphasizes understanding stress, nervous‑system response, and cultivating self-care practices.

23:00-26:00 Cultural neglect of caregivers. Sharon and Jonathan reflect on how society often treats caregiver burnout as a “cost of business,” underscoring her advocacy for honoring and supporting these vital workers.

26:00-30:00 Interdependence & our shared humanity. The idea that the world is based on competition, not cooperation, might be entirely incorrect. Sharon invites listeners to reflect on how deeply interwoven we are: who supports us for us to succeed, who grows our food, who maintains our cities — revealing a “bone‑deep recognition” of connection.

30:00-31:39 From the “three S’s” to the “three C’s.” Sharon and Jonathan describe two social narratives: one rooted in the worldview that we are separate, scared, and selfish (“the three S’s”), and a contrasting paradigm based on connection, compassion, and courage (“the three C’s”). The difficulty of having a large societal paradigm shift is that such a change requires genuine insight and wisdom. 

31:39-38:42 Real Happiness Challenge & practical tools. She introduces her signature 28-day Real Happiness meditation challenge, where participants practice stabilizing attention with the breath, opening awareness to body and emotions, and cultivating loving-kindness, even toward their own struggles.

38:42-41:54 Creating a culture of wellness. Sharon shares how wellness practices expand from individuals to communities — for example, in shelters or organizations, where people establish shared rituals, rest norms, and safe space for vulnerability.

41:54-46:45 What’s next: Sharon gives an update on her upcoming children’s book Kind Carl (for ages 4–8), a loving-kindness workbook, and a play based on her life and spiritual journey. Discussion of recognizing suffering and the causes of suffering. 

46:45-49:47 Sharon talks about the meditation exercises she recorded for the Care for Caregivers App at the Garrison Institute — simple, accessible, and structured to help people begin again with steadiness and kindness.