In this episode, Lynn Korbel speaks with Engaged Mindfulness Institutes Program Coordinator Julie Paquette-Moore about advancing mindfulness teaching, making it more available and inclusive, and improving teaching skills.
The evolution of MBSR & mindfulness facilitation.
Improving access & promoting inclusiveness.
Criteria for assessing and developing mindfulness teaching skills.
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Lynn Koerbel serves as the Assistant Director of MBSR Teacher Training and Curricula Development at the School of Professional Studies at Brown University. In this capacity, Lynn continues the work she began at the University of Massachusetts Medical School’s Center for Mindfulness, nurturing MBSR teachers and teachers in training and supporting the integrity of the MBSR curriculum and best practices in teaching. Lynn spent 25 years as an integrative bodywork therapist with a focus on supporting individuals who had experienced early trauma. This work influenced Lynn’s deep trust in the body’s wisdom, the power of presence, and the human capacity to meet injury, trauma, and stress with resources reflecting the inherent wholeness in each person. Lynn has practiced and taught Siddha Yoga Meditation since 1986, a non-dual tradition that draws from Advaita Vedanta and Kashmir Shaivism, and has been practicing Western Insight Meditation since 2003. Currently, she also serves on the international committee supporting the development of trainings for The Mindfulness-Based Interventions: Teaching Assessment Criteria (MBI:TAC), the only evaluation and training tool for Mindfulness-Based Teachers; she has co-authored several articles on this topic. https://www.brown.edu/public-health/mindfulness/people/lynn-koerbel-mph
Podcast Transcript
Julie Paquette-Moore 0:05
Hello, and welcome to another session of the Teaching Mindfulness Summit. I'm here today with Lynn Koerbel. And I'd love to read her bio before we get started and jump into questioning. So Lynn serves as the Assistant Director of MBSR teacher training and curricula development at the School of Professional Studies at Brown University. In this capacity, Lynn continues the work she began at the University of Massachusetts Medical School's Center For Mindfulness, nurturing MBSR teachers and teachers' training and supporting the integrity of the MBSR curriculum and best practices in teaching. Lynn spent 25 years as an integrative bodywork therapist with a focus on supporting individuals who had experienced early trauma. This work influenced deep trust in the body's wisdom, the power of presence, and the human capacity to meet injury, trauma, and stress with resources reflecting the inherent wholeness in each person. Lynn has practiced and taught Siddha Yoga meditation since 1986, a non-dual tradition that draws from Vedanta/Kashmir Shaivism and has been practicing Western Insight Meditation since 2003. She also serves on the international committee supporting the development of trainings for the Mindfulness-Based Interventions Teaching Assessment Criteria, or MBITAC, the only evaluation tool in training for Mindfulness-Based teachers. She has co-authored several articles on this topic. So welcome, Lynn. Nice to see you.
Lynn Koerbel 1:54
Thank you, Julie. It's great to be here.
Julie Paquette-Moore 1:56
It's good to have you. The word mindfulness has so many different meanings and definitions. Can you start by defining mindfulness in terms of the MBSR program or even in your own words?
Lynn Koerbel 2:20
Thank you. I appreciate starting here because I've been training teachers for a long time, and so much has changed. We can stand at the grocery store and see articles about mindfulness on the endcaps of magazines, but what are we speaking about?
I feel grateful because my deepest training is in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction; this is the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn. We start our courses with his definition. He says it is a 'working definition'. We are practicing to see what part of 'this definition' shows up. How do we work with it? He says there's an 'intentional quality' where we pay attention purposefully. We are honing our intention to pay attention to what's happening in the present moment. He adds this comment as an aside, non-judgmentally.
I spend much time uncovering what this means in my classes, but I frame it differently. It's more about befriending ourselves. The mind, in its nature, is a judging machine. It's comparing, evaluating, assessing, and we can know that. And as soon as we know it, 'Oh, my mind is evaluating,' there's a little gap and space. There's this knowing that happens around the judging, but we can also bring a quality of friendliness, like, 'Oh, yes, this is my mind. This is my mind on that old story about my mother or the recognition of these patterns.
This has an interesting effect on softening these patterns. The mind doesn't have to attach to 'This is the truth.' That's the working definition that we use for MBSR. John goes on to say something critical: paying attention on purpose to what's happening in the present moment, non-judgmentally, is in service of wisdom, self-understanding, and recognizing our intrinsic interconnectedness with others and the world.
Thus, it is also in service of kindness and compassion. That's a direct quote from 'Meditation is Not What You Think' by Jon Kabat Zinn. I think this is critical, especially in 2024, when we're not just coming to practice, whether it's a mindfulness-based stress reduction class, a mindfulness-based cognitive therapy class, or any mindfulness-based program; it's for our pain and suffering. We are coming because we've looked at the world and said, 'This is hard.' I'm challenged in my community and my family, and I'm challenged in my country and state.
So, we're practicing this to gain greater understanding and mutual regard. He names many words that will come up in the class: understanding, compassion, and kindness. I think it's critical to keep those two parts of the definition in play as we go along. In MBSR, we do that through both formal practices and the rigorous systematic training in formal practices that we have recordings for, and it's a fairly hefty lift. It's not a 10-minute app, and that's great. That's great for many people, but some come in ready to go deeper into a formal practice.
Right from the beginning, we introduce informal practice. One of my favorite informal practices is walking outside and looking up at the beginning of the day. In that moment of pausing and experiencing myself, as a human being, we're suspended between the Earth, grounded in the Earth, and the Heavens.
In that moment, whatever I was doing, feeding the dog, getting my lunch together, figuring out my bus schedule, when I walked outside, something changed, something opened, and I could feel, if I choose, I can feel my interconnection with the world. I'm a part of this.
That's a brief example of an informal practice that brings our attention to a moment in our lives. That's usually a particularly expansive moment. Unless it's raining cats and dogs, I might want to ensure I have the proper stuff.
We can also bring that kind of attentiveness to the moments of conflict. We pass our partner or a colleague, and they don't talk to us, for instance, or they seem to ignore us, or we get a tone from someone that pains us. We can pay attention to that. That lets us see, 'Hmm, do I need to check it out with the person? Do I need to sit with this?' So, this is how informal practice can greatly support our lives.
Julie Paquette-Moore 8:19
It's amazing how you're defining mindfulness and, at the same time, talking about how to practice it. Here is the definition, but how do we integrate that somehow? I think paying attention to purpose in the present moment is important in the initial definition. You also have this added piece that sounds like how we attend or why we attend, in wisdom, in service of kindness for the greater whole, rather than just for personal practice or ourselves. I think it's interesting how that definition gets expanded to include more. You then talk about how you put that into practice with the informal practices. It's helpful for this audience to know where you're coming from for this conversation.
I'd love to pivot now so people know where you're coming from in your definition. I want to discuss how people come into a teaching role within MBSR or other mindfulness-based interventions. I'm wondering if you'd like to talk about the current state of the MBSR world and how things have begun to shift from when it first started at UMass Medical System. Could you take us through where it was and where it's going? That would be interesting for people interested in learning this teacher training path, what it takes to be in this role, and how it looks.
Lynn Koerbel 10:19
In some ways, it is mind-blowing or heart-blowing because it wasn't on the map when I started this work in 2004. MBSR was still a 'way out' thing. If people haven't watched the Bill Moyers special, 'Healing in the Mind,' that Jon Kabat Zinn was part of, you can find it on YouTube. I highly recommend it because it was a pivotal moment when this took off. When this idea is that people could, through meditation practices, touch into their resources, change their relationship with different medical symptoms, and gain choice and priority about their lives and values. Some of us in the MBSR world like to say that Jon Kabat Zinn didn't create mindfulness. But he did bring it together in a way, in a format that allowed it to be accessible to people who may never walk into a meditation hall or decide to study meditation.
In the early 2000s, MBSR was the entryway into Western mindfulness for people looking at the science of mindfulness. And now, MBSR is just one stream. There are other eight-week programs; there are other flavors. This is just one narrow piece of what mindfulness is. I do want to say that carefully. It's narrow, but it's also a public health initiative. John brought it forward as a public health initiative, one of many ways to recruit resources to add to well-being and flourishing.
The training of MBSR teachers is still relatively new. I feel fortunate that I've been part of this stream moving forward. And as we go, we keep seeing where the gaps are. Initially, people came to the teacher training with many years of meditation practice and retreat experience. They brought a certain level of wisdom, knowledge, and experience but didn't always know how to run a group. Or how to ask questions about practice in a way that was never asked in a meditation hall. There were places where we started to see ways to grow.
Various teachers were honored and humbled to be part of a lineage. Saki Santerli, Lawrence Milio Meyer, and Melissa Blacker were my teachers, and where I cut my teeth on the curriculum. Now, I feel like I can funnel that through and see where it goes. This context feels critical because taking the next step is hard if we don't know what shoulders we're standing on. In the mindfulness training field, there are many two-day programs, such as 'Do This in a Weekend' and 'Learn How to Do This.' You don't even need to have a practice.
Where we stand, where I stand, where the training program at Brown stands, is that a teacher's practice and formation is critical. It's the essence because we're showing up there in the class; we're meeting the humans who come to class even when we're online. We've been teaching online since 2017. That needs some strength because we don't know who will show up. People come with various issues and challenges, and if we haven't investigated those things for ourselves, it doesn't have to look exactly alike. But if we don't know what it is to fall asleep in the body scan or to avoid attending to certain parts of our body, how in the world are we going to be able to meet someone, honestly, when they show up and say, 'I fall asleep every time I get to my knees.'
We ask many people to bring their whole selves, their hearts. The integration of the mind and the heart practice goes beyond what we might think of as educational venues. A check mark or a checklist of, 'Okay, I've had these classes.' It's a deeper exploration of how the curriculum of my life shows up. How does that play out in the MBSR curriculum? And how can I meet people authentically? Because even online, people know when we're real, and they know when we're faking it. That feels essential.
Julie Paquette-Moore 16:33
You've mentioned where it was, where it's going, and who's now coming into this. It sounds to me like in the past, people experienced these meditation practices differently. They came in with a background and a history of practice for themselves. And you've stated the importance of that in how what we teach needs to be integrated. It needs to be more than just theory or something we've read; it needs to be something we've experienced ourselves.
You've mentioned the importance of personal practice and being the one doing this. You mentioned the body scans specifically and knowing when you're avoiding places in the body that might be difficult. How do we teach if we've yet to experience this for ourselves if we've only read about it?
I think there's something important about experience and personal practice. How do you see this now? You started to talk about the way people 'come in'. Can you talk about what you require from someone entering a program? What is it that you're looking for people to have already experienced to begin this path of Mindfulness-Based stress reduction teacher or any of the mindfulness-based interventions?
Lynn Koerbel 18:13
We have people who come who are ready to retire and looking to serve in different ways. We have people actively in the workforce and meeting populations that need this. It is really important to highlight that the trainees who come to us feel a certain calling: some sense of wanting to give back, wanting to support, wanting to uplift, wanting to come together in a collective way, to be more skillful, wiser, and more compassionate.
Sometimes, we get people who have a background in engineering. I've had people who haven't had a single group experience or haven't been teachers; they've been engineers or chemists, but they feel something inside. That's more important than having group experience. Those skills can be taught, such as having a personal practice and feeling this strongly. I always say nobody gets here casually. It takes far too much time, energy, and commitment. There's the daily practice. Just that alone, you don't just show up at the door and say, 'Oh, I'll do this little training.'
People often start to realize the responsibility and commitment, and it takes some time to strengthen their practice before going on. So, our teacher training allows people space between those training components. You are expected to participate in some activities, retreats being one of them. You are expected to do a little bit of teaching, teaching some intro programs. You start to get your sea legs on. How do we talk about this? How do we talk about this in a way people can relate to?
In Buddhist terminology, we might not call it suffering, but we all relate to stress. That was one of the geniuses of John, to name it, something that we all can relate to. We get people coming to the training path from all walks of life. Our scope is international: people at universities, doctors and nurses, retirees, and people of different ages. Having them come into the training program, get to know each other, and find ways of connecting is quite something. In that regard, it's quite beautiful.
I would say that's one of the most important and sustaining features for the future of MBSR teacher training. I'd say that goes for all mindfulness training: having places, online or in person, to connect with other trainees and teachers. 'Let me tell you about what happened in class last week,' or 'I had this occur in somebody's practice, and I don't know what to say to them.' That nourishes the seeds of community. Everything from how do I mark it? How do I get the word out, to the pedagogy, to one's practice? Gratefully, it's nothing that nobody has to own. Everyone can participate in the ways they want to and see fit in their own language. I think that's a compelling aspect of the future of mindfulness and MBSR Teacher Training.
Julie Paquette-Moore 22:19
Can you speak to that directly or more on the accessibility piece? You mentioned having online opportunities so that people can engage no matter where they are in the world. How are you, in your programming, making these opportunities for teacher training more accessible? In terms of economics and who's coming into the training. You talked about people coming in from varied backgrounds and careers. How do we include more teachers, in terms of teachers of color or teachers of different religious backgrounds, whatever the case may be? In what ways do you see that moving forward for your programming and what you're doing?
Lynn Koerbel 23:21
Thank you. We at Brown can't do it all. It's great to see so many different training programs arise around the world. One of the critical moments in the history of this movement was around 2017/ 2018, when David Treleaven's book, 'Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness' came onto the scene. He and two of the researchers here at Brown, Willoughby Britton, and Jared Lindell, came to UMass to do the first three-day training called 'First do no Harm,' which was about trauma-sensitive mindfulness training.
I remember, after talking with David, that MBSR has always been implicitly trauma-sensitive. We always knew there was trauma in the classroom. It just wasn't 'out there'. I thought, now it's time for it to be explicit. That created some changes in how we teach. So, we don't only talk about awareness of breath meditation, but we also focus on different anchors that are more accessible. Offering more aspects of agency and permission leaves a participant with choice.
One of the beautiful aspects of David Treleaven's book, Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness, is that he shifted trauma from an individual lens to acknowledging its communal and intergenerational nature, thus widening the lens of what is happening at a certain time. He talks about the Me Too Movement and Black Lives Matter. Then, with the pandemic, health disparities became critical.
We have a researcher here at Brown, Jeff Prue, who has created a program called Indigenous Mind, an adaptation of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, that he's been bringing to various First Nations in the US. How do we see the common threads in different cultures that are already mindful, maybe using different language and activities? They don't teach in those classes; it's not mindful walking; it might be mindful dancing or mindful beading. His programs are doing this; he's very innovative. Several organizations are working to change the white landscape of mindfulness teaching and training. Brown is doing what it can, trying to glide path teachers of color who are working with important populations. Anyone working with populations without access, whether economically, racially, or ethnically.
This has also been in play for a long time. There have been teachers that I've trained who are Orthodox Jews in Israel, and how does that look so that men and women are in different rooms in different areas of the room? It's a highly adaptable program, and it takes us as teachers to be sensitive to recognize our biases and be willing to be in a relationship around things. As I've moved through, I feel less like an expert and more like I have much to learn, like 'Teach Me more'! These conversations with other people saying, 'This looks like this in my culture,' feel critical right now.
Julie Paquette-Moore 30:56
You've pulled out some important things regarding going forward and doing things differently. And I love how you mentioned the trauma-informed or trauma-sensitive movement and how you explicitly brought things forward. This is great in terms of accessibility. We know the levels of trauma that exist in the world, so it's interesting to think how many people, if you're a teacher, come into your classes that are experiencing some form of trauma. It is making teachers more knowledgeable and, as you said, having the skills to adapt. It's wonderful.
You talked about meeting people where they are. So, even in your programming, you're adapting practices, from mindful walking to mindful dancing. It makes sense; this is already being done. As you said, it's a way that people are bringing their attention in a specific way to something that they're doing.
How you integrate that just to make people feel more comfortable in these practices, to make them feel a little bit more natural, it’s wonderful to hear. You also talked about individual ownership, how people can develop skills independently, and how people's contributions can generate more accessibility. On top of this, the structural system and what people individually contribute can make a big difference, too. That's wonderful to hear. It sounds positive and a way to move forward in a sense to be more inclusive all around.
We've talked about who's coming in, how you're working with different groups, and how you're attracting different people to this type of training. I'm wondering what the standards are. How are you assessing people coming in to teach in terms of certifying or helping people develop their skills? How are you assessing that? I know the MBITAC has a newer, standardized way of assessing Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and mindfulness-based Interventions. But can you talk about that so people are more familiar with how you train and how you certify?
Lynn Koerbel 34:11
Yes, in the world of research, the MBITAC is young. I think it came out around 2010, and there's a lot of good research. I'm not going to bore people with that, but it did arise because Bangor and Oxford University in the UK had created master's programs. And so there is a need for a rubric, the need for an objective measure, 'How do we know if teachers are good enough'.
The work that Rebecca Crane, William Kaikan, and their colleagues did was the beginning of that. I feel grateful that I've been able to take part in some of that work as it's progressed. Whether you're an MBSR teacher, NBCT teacher, or a physics teacher, most of us have that idea of 'I'm going to be evaluated' or I'm going to be critiqued,' and it raises stuff around learning. Am I good enough?
We wanted to shift and found across the international training community that introducing the MBITAC at the right place, in the right way, in the training program could either make or break it. We shifted and found out that many of us were using the MBITAC as a map instead of as a 'Let's see if you fill all these boxes'. The domain of the relational field is the criteria, 'What does this feel like when I'm in my teaching'?
The work that they did to set up these five domains of teaching has been pretty sturdy and serves. There have been a few iterations of the instrument itself. And there's a companion: the MBI, DLC, teaching and learning companion. In the English language, it's the phrase tender loving care, TLC. It's a softer, gentler entry into the MBITAC, where trainees can self-assess how key learning features appear.
I remember co-training with Rebecca Crane in France right before the pandemic. We were sitting with a group of other trainers, and she suddenly said, 'Oh, the key learning feature in domain five needs to change this way.' There's aliveness and dynamism, and the hope is that this instrument will continue to grow.
There's an extensive body of research now, and I would say that one of the primary uses of it is as a training tool to highlight a teacher's qualities and skills. Embodiment is one of the domains. Is that competency, or is it a way of being? There are good places to dialogue with trainees about that as they develop. Overall, we see it as a tool to help teachers grow stronger, more knowledgeable, and embodied.
Julie Paquette-Moore 38:04
That's fascinating. This idea of the map being the lens of the teacher training organization makes me want to make sure that what you're offering includes these qualities or characteristics that you feel are helpful for a mindfulness teacher.
The second piece, TLC, is interesting because students can take learning into their own hands and self-evaluate, understanding what standards make a good mindfulness teacher. That can be many things, but there's a knowing of what that standard is from people with a lot of experience. Then, students can take that in and see what areas would be most helpful for them to strengthen. It's beautiful how it is a dual process; it's less assessment-based and more growth or strength-based.
Lynn Koerbel 39:33
It is a strength-based instrument, and we must always remind people. It's also important that the teaching-assessment criteria are not aimed at the teacher. We're not assessing the teacher. We all, even very highly experienced teachers, have moments where we miss it or something happens. I remember hearing about when Jon Kabat Zinn first learned about the MBITAC; he looked at the rubric, which goes from advanced beginner to competent, proficient, and advanced. He said, 'I think if we can all just be advanced beginners, we're good enough.' I found that to be enormously reassuring because I don't know if you can be an expert in mindfulness or teaching mindfulness; we can be more or less skillful. And hopefully heartful all the way through.
Julie Paquette-Moore 40:39
Skillful and heartful, rather than experts; there's something about that. When I hear that, I relax into it a little bit more. It is a different approach; it is beautiful. Can you speak specifically to embodiment or the relational fields? Can you talk to the domains of the MBITAC, to some of the specific domains of MBITAC, so that our audience has an idea of those qualities they're strengthening in their pursuit of either becoming a teacher or teaching?
Lynn Koerbel 41:51
There is a great story about when the MBITAC was first created. They were watching films with our UK colleagues. They started with 36 domains and said, 'Oh, no, that's too much.' So, there are only six, so you can remember them conveniently.
The first one is coverage, pacing, and organization of the curriculum. Do you know where you are in the schedule? Where are you in class one versus class five? Do you know what the themes are? There is a lot of knowledge. Are you organized in a way around that?
Domain two is the relational field: how are you? Is there acceptance? Is there a mutual regard and respect? Domain three is an embodiment of mindfulness. Are you present-focused? Is there a quality of vitality and potency in your teaching arising from your practice? This is the hardest domain to feel or sense because everybody brings themselves. For example, is the teacher the same if you meet them in the grocery store or see them on the street. Are they authentic?
Domain four guides mindfulness practice, which is their skillful use of language. It details whether you're guiding the raisin practice, the eating meditation, versus the body scan; what principles are you drawing from? Where are we pointing attention towards?
Domain five conveys course themes through interactive dialogue and didactic teaching. That might include poetry and PowerPoint slides, but it's also about the dialogue that's happening in the classroom. How are you building the group interactions? After all, we talked after we practiced together. We pull those conversations towards the themes that naturally arise.
The final domain is the group process and holding the group learning environment. It's more about the learning environment and how the teacher wears their authority.
It's six domains, and they're often listed. We often show a slide of a mandala with embodiment in the middle. It's not like any moment in teaching, there's only one domain going on. There is some hierarchy dependent on where you are in the curriculum, so it's not an entirely simple instrument. Still, it begins to point trainees in these ways so that the landscape of the map or territory begins to relate to the map of the MBITAC. It becomes much easier and gives some language about what's happening.
Julie Paquette-Moore 45:21
Introducing that can be important because there's a lot of information there. Regarding people feeling like they have to develop it all at once or right away, that timing you mentioned sounds essential. Is there a way for people to create or improve on those skills? Are there specific ways you're helping them develop? Embodiment is an interesting characteristic to develop to become your authentic self. How are you helping students to develop and strengthen these characteristics?
Lynn Koerbel 46:17
Throughout our training programs, the teacher advancement intensive, the curriculum, study group, and the individual mentoring we keep trying in the MBITAC. This is one of the things that time is a necessary ingredient, whether we're talking about personal practice or teaching. With the element of time, we do get better if we practice long enough and our attention wanders less. In the same way, we become attuned in different ways to different domains. Sometimes, when working with somebody in individual mentoring, I'll say, 'Choose one or two domains and explore that for class three,' for instance. You get to dive deep into just a few, and gradually, it's like steeping tea; as you marinate, it catches ahold of your authentic self. It begins to make sense, not mentally, but in an experiential way. I'll add that there are many teach-backs early on in the teacher advancement intensive. Trainees get a lot of experience teaching to their peers and teaching to each other, and if you can fall in front of your peers, it is good practice.
Julie Paquette-Moore 47:54
Your programming includes a helpful community of peers and mentors, which is a big part of development.
Lynn Koerbel 48:07
Absolutely.
Julie Paquette-Moore 48:13
Do you have any advice for people interested in developing their practice more or taking that same step to become a mindfulness teacher or facilitator? Do you have any advice you might lend?
Lynn Koerbel 48:41
I do. Stay close to your own heart and listen deeply to yourself. That can be hard to do. There's so much static, so much noise coming at us. There are many pressures and demands, and we need to attend to many of those pressures and demands, such as making a living, taking care of our families, etc. It's sometimes been referred to as the still, small voice; it's important to hone in closely on that.
I just had somebody from my MBSR class in the fall, and she said one of the things that surprised her about the class was that she began to crave and look forward to practicing in a way that she had never done. She had dabbled and felt like she had to practice, but suddenly, she longed for it. Following our
longing is more trustworthy than the other voices around us. But it takes discernment and time to listen deeply.
Julie Paquette-Moore 50:06
That might be a nice way for us to end today. Thank you for sharing so much. It's great to hear from your deep and varied experience. Our audience will learn so much from what you've shared. Thank you for being here.
Lynn Koerbel 50:32
Thank you. It's an honor to speak to you. May it be of service, however, it may be. Thank you for inviting me.
Julie Paquette-Moore 50:41
Thank you. Take good care.
Lynn Koerbel 50:43
Bye bye