247: Plot Twist: How Setbacks Can Guide You to Your True Path with Mindfulness Pioneer, Sharon Salzberg

In this bite-sized episode of The Light Watkins Show, renowned mindfulness teacher Sharon Salzberg shares the incredible story of how a college trip to India completely changed her life. Light Watkins takes listeners back to that pivotal moment when Sharon, a young student with a passion for meditation, encountered several twists and turns that ultimately led her to discover her true calling.

During this episode, Sharon recounts her journey, which started with meeting Tibetan Lama Trungpa Rinpoche and receiving life-changing advice. Her path was far from smooth—facing setbacks at meditation classes and attending a disheartening yoga conference. But it was at this low point that Sharon found what she had been searching for: a 10-day meditation course that introduced her to transformative practices like loving-kindness and mindfulness. She also crossed paths with iconic figures like Ram Dass, which shaped her future as one of the world's leading meditation teachers.

Listeners will hear how even the most frustrating detours can be part of a bigger plan, leading you closer to your truest path. Sharon’s story is an inspiring reminder that life's obstacles often redirect us toward the experiences we need most. By the end of the episode, you'll learn about the importance of embracing unexpected changes, trusting the process, and staying open to life’s surprises.

And if you want to hear more about how Sharon’s first 10-day meditation course led to the founding of one of the most renowned meditation centers in the U.S., click here.

Transcript

SS: " I did overhear a conversation at a restaurant, saying that there was going to be an international Hatha Yoga conference in New Delhi. I thought, “Oh, that's it. I'll go there. That's where I’ll find a teacher.” I went there and it was a completely – nearly completely dismal experience, where the low point was when these yogis and swamis were pushing and shoving against each other, to be the first to grab the microphone and speak. I thought, “Oh, great. This is hopeless.” Also at that conference, a young man named Dan Goleman, who we tend to know these days is the author of emotional intelligence, all these years later. Dan was giving a talk at that conference. He was at the time a graduate student in psychology. He was studying meditation. Somehow, he ended up giving a talk at this conference. He mentioned at the end of the talk, that he was on his way to this town called Bodh Gaya, in India, where there was going to be an intensive 10-day immersion course into meditation. It was very practical. You didn't have to join anything. You didn't have to reject anything else. It’s exactly what I've been looking for. I thought, “Oh, that's it. That's what I need" 

[INTRODUCTION] 

Hey friend, welcome back to The Light Watkins Show. I'm Light Watkins, and I have conversations with ordinary folks just like you and me who've taken extraordinary leaps of faith in the direction of their path, their purpose, or what they've identified as their mission in life. 

And today we have another bite sized plot twist episode for you. A plot twist is a shorter clip from a past episode where the guest shares the story of that pivotal moment in their life trajectory, where they found the gateway to their calling. And the idea behind sharing these plot twists is to inspire you to lean into those plot twists whenever they happen in your life. Because usually when you get turned around from what you thought was supposed to be your path in life, what's actually happening is you're being detoured towards your actual path. And sometimes that looks like losing your job or getting betrayed.

Or in the case of today's guest, Sharon Salzberg, her plot twist came during a trip to India when she was just a college student, where despite numerous setbacks, she was following advice that led her to a disheartening yoga conference, and then to a 10 day meditation course. And then when it was all said and done, that trip ended up transforming the entire trajectory of her life as she met iconic spiritual figures like Ram Dass and she discovered practices that would later shape her into becoming one of the world's leading teachers of mindfulness and loving kindness meditation. 

Sharon's experience is yet another beautiful reminder that even when it doesn't seem like things are unfolding according to our plan or our vision board, the universe is still nudging us toward our truest path. Let's listen in.

LW: Okay. Before your trip, you meet this Obi Wan Kenobi figure, Trungpa Rinpoche in Buffalo. Talk about that experience.

SS: I was going to the university. There were also other colleges in Buffalo. Trungpa Rinpoche was a Tibetan teacher, Tibetan Lama. Somehow, his first trip to North America, he got sent to Buffalo to speak at one of these other colleges. This is about four days before I was getting ready to leave India. This is a small group of friends and I will go in together. Some people doing things in education; people from Buffalo. 

I was 18 at this point. I was very naïve. I'd never even been to California before and I was about to go to India. I had an idea that practices held within the Buddhist tradition, this is all from that ancient philosophy class that they took, would be very simple and direct. As they often talk about, you don't need to become a Buddhist, or join anything, or reject anything else. It's really about methods. That's what I was really aiming toward, but I had no idea where to go. I didn't know anything about India, where to find a teacher, or anything. 

There was Trungpa Rinpoche, like a living embodiment of a Buddhist meditation teacher. They asked for written questions at his talk. I wrote out the question. My friends and I are about to leave for India in three or four days to study Buddhist meditation. Do you have any idea where we should go? This big pile of questions in front of him and he pulls out my question and read it out loud. Do you have any idea where we should go? Any recommendations? 

He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I think you had perhaps best follow the pretense of accident.” That was it. No addresses. No handing a monastery guide book. “I think you had perhaps best follow the pretense of accident.” That's exactly the way it worked out. I went to India. We started in Dharamshala, because I'd heard the Dalai Lama live there and heard he was a Buddhist. There were meditation classes, and they were wonderful teachers. 

It was the situation where, you know what it’s like when something just doesn't work. It's like, it just didn't work. I go to the meditation class. He told, “Oh, the translators, gone for a few weeks. Sorry, go back in two weeks.” They say, “Oh, the teacher had to go to the dentist. She was in Calcutta on the other end of India. Come back in three weeks.” It just wasn't working. I did overhear a conversation at a restaurant, saying that there was going to be an international Hatha Yoga conference in New Delhi. I thought, “Oh, that's it. I'll go there. That's where I’ll find a teacher.” 

I went there and it was a completely – nearly completely dismal experience, where the low point was when these yogis and swamis were pushing and shoving against each other, to be the first to grab the microphone and speak. I thought, “Oh, great. This is hopeless.” Also at that conference, a young man named Dan Goleman, who we tend to know these days is the author of emotional intelligence, all these years later. Dan was giving a talk at that conference. He was at the time a graduate student in psychology. He was studying meditation. 

Somehow, he ended up giving a talk at this conference. He mentioned at the end of the talk, that he was on his way to this town called Bodh Gaya, in India, where there was going to be an intensive 10-day immersion course into meditation. It was very practical. You didn't have to join anything. You didn't have to reject anything else. It’s exactly what I've been looking for. I thought, “Oh, that's it. That's what I need and it wasn't.” Actually, many others followed after Dan to Bodh Gaya and joins in this course. That began January 7th, 1971. 

LW: What was your feeling of India being completely opposite of Buffalo, New York? I mean, because like you said, this is before a lot of conveniences. You're traveling around in cars 17 hours, you’re on trains. You got Delhi belly stuff happening. I mean, you got to watch out what you're eating and just all these people and animals and just all this stuff is – all this commotion is happening. Did you feel you were home when you were in India? Or were you tolerating it to get the knowledge that you came for? 

SS: I felt like I was home. I was also terrified. I mean, that was true too. I felt I was home. I mean, it took a while to get there. Because like I said, we took a plane to [inaudible 00:28:39] express train, which is days and days to get to Turkey. Then ferries and boats and buses and trains, and all the way through the middle east to get to Pakistan and then India. Somehow, as soon as I get to India, I just felt at home. 

There was something also about the openness of it, after all the concealment of my earlier life. It's like, this is street life. I remember bringing in some of our Indian teachers from India to visit here in the States. It would get to be in certain – a lot of places. 8:00 at night or 9:00 at night and the teacher will say, “Where is everybody? The streets are empty. That’s so unnatural.”

There was so much openness. Yeah, I felt quite at home there. 

LW: You're at this 10-day retreat, this is in Bodh Gaya and you meet Ram Dass as well, for the first time. What was your impression of him? 

SS:  Well, the teacher of the retreat was S. N. Goenka. He had just left Burma pretty recently before then, to visit his mother who had been ill in Bombay. She got better and he began teaching. He was very new to teaching outside of Burma. Because Dan Goleman had inspired quite a number of people from that conference to go, this was a group of people. It was a real gathering. At that retreat, Ram Dass was a student there. He was attending as a student. He, of course, had been to India himself before. He was Ram Dass, not Richard Alpert. At that point, he came back to India after, I think, a couple of years in America. There was a group of people with him. They'd heard him on the radio. They encountered him somehow in the states and they were with him and really trying to meet his teacher, his guru. 

He was old style. He was an old-style guru. He didn't exactly know where he was going to be next and appear and disappear and be somewhere else. He didn’t know where he was, or who the teacher was. You couldn't text everybody, or email everybody. It’s like, “Hey, we spotted.” They would try to do worthy things with their time. There's a whole group of them who are attending this course with Ram Dass. It was Ram Dass, Krishna Das, lots of people who were still good friends. 

I look back, Ram Dass, he was like the patriarch who had been fired from Harvard. He’d already had a guru and a new name. Looking back, I realized, “Oh, he was 38 or 39-years-old. He seemed so old.” He was really the patriarch. When we were there together practicing, that the first box, the first appearance of Be Here Now, his great book was not a book, it was a box. Everything was loose, the Chai recipes, and things like that. 

I remember him getting the box. We all opened the box and we're looking at and ooing and I and looking at all the stuff. Everything felt very fresh. It was really very new and exciting. It’s such a sense of community and such a sense of discovery. It's like, “Oh, look what my breath feels when I do this.” Every little thing was so meaningful. 

LW: You were still relatively young at that time. You're 19, 20-years-old. If I were to speak with Dan or somebody who was around at that time, Krishna Das and say, “What were your reflections of Sharon at the time?” What would they have said? 

SS: She's very quiet. She's very sweet. Krishna Das and I teach together at Fairmount and we often tell the same story each from our own perspective, because Goenka taught many retreats in a row, maybe little gaps in between, and then being on other retreat. One of the gaps, Dan had gone to Allahabad, which is where it's the grounds of this huge gathering, the Kumbh Mela, which has this astrological points of every four years of this and we told him it was this. When it's the big one, it's millions and millions and millions of people who come together to bathe the Gangas. 

LW: The largest gathering of humans on Earth, they say. 

SS: Dan has gone there. Then it came back to Bodh Gaya and we were practicing. Then the Mela was over, but this group of people around Ram Dass, some people who had really wrapped those courses, because of Ram Dass, some people who met Ram Dass there, decided that they were going to get in this bus. 

LW: Oh, my God. You were there? 

SS: I was there. Sure. 

LW: On the bus? 

SS: No, no, no. I waved goodbye to the bus. That's why Krishna Das and I tell the story; same story from two different angles. They decided they were going to get in this bus and tour around, looking for Maharaja. They had no idea where he was. 

Again, it wasn't like, a blog some rooms and going to right spot it in Banaras guru and [inaudible 00:34:22]. I remember deliberating internally, “Do I want to get on that bus?” I don't know. I've just discovered this practice. It's really important for me. They don't even know where the guy is. I'm just going to keep meditating here. When they left, Ram Dass was the only one with a name Ram Dass. They were Linda and Jeffrey. Somewhere as they tell the story, because now I'm not privy to it, they're on the bus and Dan Goleman wants to have the bus detour and see the grounds where the Kumbh Mela had been. It wasn't even there anymore. Ram Dass said, “No.” He wanted to go right on to Delhi and they have this discussion. 

Finally, Ram Dass said, “Okay. We’ll go look at the grounds of the Mela.” They got there and there was [inaudible 00:35:22] waiting for them by the side of the road. Apparently, he had woken up that morning and told this host, make lunch for, I don't know, let's say 28 people. There were exactly 28 people, including the bus driver. At one point I said to Krishna Das, “Well, how long did it take you to find him?” He said, “10 hours.” His life choices is very interesting right there. 

LW: You had your first experience, I think it was the last day of the 10-day retreat, where S. N. Goenka talked about Mettaa. Talk about that. How that made you feel? 

SS: Yeah. Well, the main engine for that retreat and for many, many approaches to meditation is mindfulness, which is really a way of trying to get closer to your experience, having your awareness be less cluttered, less filled with old fears or future projections, so you can see much more accurately what your experience really is. Maybe it's pain, but it’s not pain-plus. The anticipation of the next 50 years, not feeling any better. That was really the essential tool in that 10-day retreat. 

Right at the end, almost as a ceremonial way of saying goodbye, Goenka introduced this other method, which is called Metta. Metta means loving kindness. It was one particular form, one way of doing it. There are many, many ways of doing it, but it was my first introduction. There, rather than trying to just get closer to the truth of your experience, whatever it is, you're actually actively offering goodwill and well wishes to yourself and to others. 

Goenka considered a certain way through sensation in the body, because that was very much his approach with mindfulness is being aware. It’s almost like, filling your body with the sense of warmth and caring, and then you offer it, ultimately, to all of life, including yourself. 

I was just riveted. I thought, “Wow, what's this? I really want to learn this method.” I mean, I studied it and I tried to understand it. Of course, it was Goenka times and he was doing it in that same way, right at the end of this mindfulness retreat. It was only in 1985 that I went to Burma and did a three-month intensive meditation retreat on loving kindness, on that particular technique. They taught it somewhat differently than Goenka done, but it's the same essence. It became hugely important for me in my practice. That was my intuition beforehand anyway. It's why I really wanted to learn it. That was ’85. I came back. I started teaching it right away as a method. My first book was called loving kindness and that came out about 10 years later, because I'm very slow. 

LW: After Dipa Ma had ordained you a future teacher and you pushed back on that, you still are wandering around, linking up with Joseph in Colorado and staying in these houses with people and stuff like that. Can you just walk us through how you went from there to how you guys ended up starting the center in Barre? 

SS: Well, Dipa Ma in Calcutta in 1974, came back to the States. I was on the East Coast. I was with my family. I did the preparatory work for getting a new visa to go back to India forever and all that. 

LW: Did they think you were weird when you were back with your family? 

SS: Yeah. I mean, everyone was so glad to see me and they're so relieved. I also didn't have the other sophistication, or the language to really explain, like they said to me as they did, “Are you still Jewish?” I would say, “Yeah, of course.” I didn't know how to describe what I've been doing. A group of us thought, “Oh.” This is another whole Ram Dass story, but Joseph Goldstein, who was also at my first retreat, that's where we met, had come back to the States about six months before I did. 

He was traveling across the country with some friends and he stopped in Boulder, Colorado. Boulder was the site where Trungpa Rinpoche, same Trungpa Rinpoche that had sent me off with the pretense of accident, no addresses, who was establishing this institute called Naropa. Naropa Institute. Now it's university, because it's gotten affiliated. Those days it was an institute and it was the first place I'd heard of, where there was meditation and textual study of Hinduism and Buddhism, and Tai Chi, martial arts, and so many things being offered. 

This is prior to the official opening, which was in the summer. Joseph stopped there and asked in their office. He said, “I've been living in India for seven years. My teachers have told me to teach. I have started teaching in India. Would you like me to teach a course?” They said, “No, thanks.” 

He went on to Berkeley. As he tells the story, of course we'd known Ram Dass from India, and we're good friends. He said, he got to Berkeley and he called Ram Dass. The answering machine, which is what it was in those days, had a very forbidding message like, “Not talking to anybody. Don't leave a message.” 

Joseph went to telegraph avenue to continue on the pretense of accident theme. He needed to use the bathroom, so he went into some café and they said, “Only for customers.” In a way, I still can't figure out. He didn't buy a bagel or something. He decided to go to another place to look for a bathroom. I think, he was on his third place when he walked in and there was Ram Dass sitting in the cafe. 

Ram Dass was about to go to Boulder, to Naropa Institute, where he have a mega class of a 1,000 people. He has Joseph, if he would come lead the meditation sub-group. We say, he gave Joseph his first teaching job in the States, which is true. Joseph went to Boulder and was very, very popular teaching that. He was actually invited to stay on for the second summer session. This is still the first summer session. Some friends and I decided, “You know what? Let's go to Boulder and visit Joseph.” 

We went to Boulder and Joseph is living in a one-bedroom apartment, like a student apartment that had given him. At one point, nine of us moved in to this one-bedroom apartment. It was really and Jack Kornfield ws living down the hall. That's where we met. I stayed on with Joseph in the second summer session. I was his TA. Then we got invited to teach a month-long retreat, Joseph and I. So we did. 

Then we got a letter from somebody saying, “I can get together some friends and a cook. Would you cook teacher retreat?” There's Jack, Joseph and I and a couple of other friends and it'll be different configurations of some of us. We had nothing. We had no home. We had nothing. I mean, they had both still living parents, but on the East Coast. We were just sleeping in people's living room couches, literally, crashing at people's homes. 

One day, one of the people who I think had – hosted us the most said in some self-defense like, “I have a rental property down near Santa Cruz. Why don't you move in there?” We did. We opened it as a retreat center, where it was just a house, but you could come and do your own retreat, and we would cook for you and just have a supportive environment. 

Somebody came through at one point, writing a book and wanting that atmosphere. He said, “You know, you should really start a real retreat center. You should start a center of your own, where it would become a sacred site in this country. it'll be a place where the energy that's generated when people come together, doesn't have to disperse.” He said, “I know that people are going to help you.” They’re all in Massachusetts. He’s right. They were the people; formed a non-profit, formed a board, were able to understand what we were looking for, found it, did the negotiation. We ended up buying this property in Barre, Massachusetts for a $150,000, which we did not have. 

This is an institutional building, or set of buildings that sleep about a 100, everything; kitchen and whatever. It was a $150,000. It was owned by the Catholic Church, by the fathers of the Blessed Sacrament. They gave us a $50,000 mortgage. We raised $50,000. We couldn't get a bank to give us a mortgage for the other $50,000. These friends went off to the bank and they personally took out loans, so that we could open the doors. That's the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. 

LW: A couple of questions about this. When you get a room of meditators together, usually they're not very business-savvy people, especially people who spent a lot of time in India, and you're following your heart and doing all these, what people would consider airy-fairy things, especially if you're working in the banking industry. Who was the driving force? Who was the organizer? Who was the task rabbit in that circle that made sure that things – the eyes were dotted and the T's were crossed and things like that? 

SS: I mean, we were really lucky, that group of people that formed the first board, the first board of directors. They quickly saw that we were not that capable in so many realms. We had a policy for a long time, which we used to call the separation of church and state, where the teachers would decide who else to invite to teach, and what would be taught there. The board would decide everything the board is responsible for; finances and so on. 

Ultimately, they had a lot of power. Clearly, we knew nothing. We also grew up in a tradition in Asia. Grew up in that sense, where you did not really charge for the teachings. Some of the places, we paid room and boards, other places, we paid nothing, because even that was provided and voluntary donations to the teachers, [inaudible 00:47:40] or to the monastery. Suddenly, we're in the lands of, well, the staff really needs health insurance. You can't fairly have a staff here. It’s like, “Huh. Do I need health insurance too? I guess, I do. It's a different world.” 

When we opened the doors, we charged $6.50 a night. We had no money. Somebody's father gave them a car. That's why we had a car. It was those days. I remember very early board meeting, one of the board members said, “Well, you're not thinking about depreciation.” I or somebody said, “What's depreciation?” They said, “Well, what if a roof starts leaking?” We said, “Oh, well. We'll just raise money for it,” not realizing we weren’t in Asia anymore. It was a real education. I think necessary, but it was all dependent on those people. We could never have done it without them.

[END]

That was Sharon Salzberg sharing her incredible plot twist. And if you want to know more about how Sharon became a trailblazer in mindfulness and loving kindness practices, head over to her original episode, which is episode 40, and you want to start around the 48-minute-mark. And be sure to follow Sharon on the socials @sharonsalzberg.

And if you enjoyed this plot twist and you want to hear other inspiring stories, I recommend checking out episode 238 with George Peterson, George shares his story of going from being a heroin addict and a felon to becoming a Vedic meditation teacher and an author. And so that was a fascinating tale.

You also don't want to miss episode 181 with Dan Harris, who's the former ABC news anchor. Dan recounts the infamous on air panic attack that was caught live on television  that became the catalyst for his deep dive into meditation. 

And if you happen to know of anyone who's making the world a better place and they had an incredible plot twist in their life, please email me your guest suggestions at  light@lightwatkins.com

My other ask is that you take a few seconds to leave a rating or a review for the show. You hear podcast hosts like me asking listeners like you for ratings all the time, because that's how a lot of guests will determine if they are going to come on to this podcast. So. It makes a massive difference. It's completely free. All you do is you look at your device, click on the name of this show, scroll down past those first few episodes. You'll see a space with five blank stars. Just tap the star all the way on the right to leave a five star rating. And if you're feeling generous. Please write a one line review, just letting a potential listener know which episode they should consider starting with.

And that will go a long way as well. Also, don't forget you can watch these plot twist episodes on my YouTube channel. If you prefer to see what Sharon looks like as she's sharing her plot twist. And don't forget to subscribe on YouTube as well. And I will see you on Wednesday for the next long form conversation about an ordinary person doing extraordinary things to leave the world a better place.

And until then, keep trusting your intuition, keep following your heart, and keep leaning into those plot twists whenever they happen in your life. And if no one's told you lately that they believe in you, I believe in you. Thank you so much. Sending lots of love and have a fantastic weekend.