is an American meditation teacher. He leads residential and phone-based meditation retreats for students interested in learning the Vipassana (insight) tradition of Buddhism. Shinzen was originally ordained in Japan as a monk in the

Shingon Shingon monks at Mount Koya is one of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asia, originally spread from India to China through traveling monks such as Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra. Kn ...

(Japanese

Vajrayana Vajrayāna ( sa, वज्रयान, "thunderbolt vehicle", "diamond vehicle", or "indestructible vehicle"), along with Mantrayāna, Guhyamantrayāna, Tantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, are names referring t ...

) tradition. He has studied and practiced extensively in other traditions, including

Zen Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

and Native American traditions. He frequently uses concepts from mathematics as a metaphor to illustrate the abstract concepts of meditation. As a result, his teachings tend to be popular among academics and professionals. His interest in integrating meditation with scientific paradigms has led to collaborations with neuroscientists at Harvard Medical School,

University of Massachusetts Medical School The University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School is a public medical school in Worcester, Massachusetts. It is part of the University of Massachusetts system. It is home to three schools: the T.H. Chan School of Medicine, the Morningside Grad ...

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

Carnegie Mellon Carnegie may refer to: People * Carnegie (surname), including a list of people with the name * Clan Carnegie, a lowland Scottish clan Institutions Named for Andrew Carnegie *Carnegie Building (Troy, New York), on the campus of Rensselaer Polyt ...

, and the

University of Vermont The University of Vermont (UVM), officially the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, is a public land-grant research university in Burlington, Vermont. It was founded in 1791 and is among the oldest universities in the United ...

. He is working on various ways to bring a secular mindfulness practice to a wider audience using revamped terminology and techniques as well as automated expert systems. Shinzen has adapted the central Buddhist concept of the five

skandhas (Sanskrit) or (Pāḷi) means "heaps, aggregates, collections, groupings". In Buddhism, it refers to the five aggregates of clinging (), the five material and mental factors that take part in the rise of craving and clinging. They are also ...

or aggregates into modern language, grouped them into sensory categories with potential neurological correlates, and developed an extensive system of meditation techniques for working with those categories individually and in combinations.

Personal life

Shinzen Young was born as Steve Young in Los Angeles, California. His parents were Jewish. While in middle school, he became fascinated with Asian languages and cultures. After graduating from UCLA as an Asian Language major, he enrolled in the University of Wisconsin's Ph.D. program in Buddhist Studies. In order to gather materials for his doctoral dissertation, he was ordained as a

monk at

Mount Kōya is a large temple settlement in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan to the south of Osaka. In the strictest sense, ''Mount Kōya'' is the mountain name ( sangō) of Kongōbu-ji Temple, the ecclesiastical headquarters of the Kōyasan sect of Shingon Bud ...

, Japan in 1970.

Books

*''Break Through Pain: A Step-by-Step Mindfulness Meditation Program for Transforming Chronic and Acute Pain'' (2006) *''The Beginner's Guide to Meditation'' (2002) *''The Science of Enlightenment: How Meditation Works'' (2016)

Audio publications

*''The Science of Enlightenment'' (2005) *''Pain Relief'' (2004) *''Beginner's Mind: 3 Classic Meditation Practices Especially for Beginners'' (1999) *''Break Through Difficult Emotions: How to Transform Painful Feelings With Mindfulness Meditation'' (1997) *''Break Through Pain: How to Relieve Pain Using Powerful Meditation Techniques'' (1997) *''Meditation in the Zone: How to Turn Your Workout into a High-Quality Meditation'' (1996) *''Five Classic Meditations: Mantra, Vipassana, Karma Yoga, Loving Kindness, Kabbalah'' (1990) (2004)

References

External links

Essays outlining his meditation system

What is Mindfulness?

An Introduction to ULTRA: Universal Library for Training Attention

See, Hear, Feel: An introduction

An Outline of Practice

Five Ways to Know Yourself: An Introduction to Basic Mindfulness
{{DEFAULTSORT:Young, Shinzen Living people Theravada Buddhist spiritual teachers American Buddhists Converts to Buddhism from Judaism American writers Buddhist writers Writers from Los Angeles Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American Buddhists