Friday, February 20 – Sunday, February 22, 2026

Friday | 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm ET

Saturday & Sunday | 10:00 am - 5:00 pm ET

Hybrid | $295

Co-Hosted by Tibet House US & Dharma Moon

Meditation is not just a means of calming down or becoming more productive. It is a practice that can open the door to genuinely life-changing insights and lead to a profound new way of relating to ourselves, others, and the world around us.

This introductory level of Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training serves as a comprehensive introduction to the foundational Buddhist meditation practices. Through talks, discussion, guided practice, breakout rooms, and experiential exercises, you will learn the fundamentals of mindfulness meditation practice, get an overview of the Buddhist path and stages of practice, and develop your personal meditation practice to gain a direct and intimate understanding of mindfulness practice.

 Create a strong foundation for becoming an authorized mindfulness teacher!

Level 1 Topics

– What is Mindfulness? The History and Current Landscape 

– Mindfulness Meditation Instruction, Philosophy, and Practice

– Somatic Awareness: Working with the Posture and Relating to the Body During Meditation 

– Learning how to let go of fixations and habitual tendencies through mindfulness meditation practice

– Working with thoughts, strong emotions, and relating to our sense perceptions during meditation.

– Cultivating Gentleness and Precision in Practice

– Introduction to Loving-Kindness / Maitri / Metta Meditation

– The Buddhist View on Impermanence, Causes and Conditions, and Absolute & Relative Bodhicitta

– An Examination of The Three Marks of Existence: Impermanence, Suffering, and Non-self and how they relate to our practice

& more! 

Introduction to Mindfulness & The Path of Meditation can be taken as a standalone course separate from the 100-hour teacher training, and serves as a comprehensive Level 1 introduction to the foundational Buddhist meditation practices. You can take it live or at your own pace via the recordings.

BIOS 

David Nichtern (Founder, Lead Teacher & CEO of Dharma Moon) is a senior Buddhist teacher who has been practicing and teaching meditation for over 40 years. He was one of the initial American students of renowned meditation master Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and studied closely with him soon after his arrival in the United States in 1970.

David is also a business consultant with companies creating a variety of offerings integrating meditation in a larger health and well-being context; including NASA, Goldman Sachs, Journey Meditation, Creative Live, True Nature Meditation (Tokyo), Balanced Athlete, The Center for Health & Healing, Om Births, and Kobre & Kim law firm among others.

He has been featured in The New York Times, FOX News, Netflix's animated series The Midnight Gospel, Huffington Post, Ten Percent Happier podcast with Dan Harris, Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast, You Made it Weird podcast with Pete Holmes, and many others. David also hosts his own Podcast based on his book Creativity, Spirituality & Making a Buck.

David is the author of the critically acclaimed books Awakening From the Daydream: Reimagining The Buddha's Wheel of Life and Creativity, Spirituality & Making a Buck. He mentors individual students both in person and online, and leads meditation teacher training programs around the world.

He is also a four time Emmy-winning and two time Grammy-nominated composer and producer, as well as the founder of Dharma Moon Records and 5 Points Records. David has recorded and played with Stevie Wonder, Jerry Garcia, Lana Del Rey, Maria Muldaur, Paul Simon and many others. Among his many credits in records, film and TV, he wrote the classic hit song "Midnight at the Oasis" and composed the score for Christopher Guest's film "The Big Picture". In recent years he has produced multiple records for and periodically tours and performs with Grammy nominated kirtan singer Krishna Das.

René Fay is the Community Director for Dharma Moon. They are a certified mindfulness meditation teacher and death doula, they studied comparative religion and gender studies, and they earned their black belt at 17. René’s career has a long and extensive history of advocacy, with a focus on collaboration with, support of, and focus on: at-risk youth; queer communities and people; intimate partner violence/sexual assault prevention and intervention; and grief and crisis counseling. René is passionate about making meditation and dharma teachings radically accessible and has personally used meditation to transform their relationship with their own anxiety and chronic health issues. Outside of work, they're likely to be knitting while trapped under a cat listening to podcasts.