Bart van Melik has been teaching personal meditation and Insight Dialogue since 2009, with a specific focus on working with diverse populations. He is a graduate of the Community Dharma Leader Program at Spirit Rock and is currently in the Spirit Rock/IMS teacher training program; his mentors are Joseph Goldstein, Carol Wilson, Gregory Kramer and his son Lou. Bart also teaches through the Metta Foundation and is a senior teacher at the Lineage Project. He also teaches meditation and yoga at a VA hospital, juvenile detention center, homeless shelters, and Public Schools in NYC. Bart holds an MA in Psychology of Culture and Religion from the Nijmegen University in The Netherlands. His passion is supporting people to discover how they can find new ways to relate to the stress created by our life circumstances.
How does perception shape our experience? And how easily can a perception become overthinking, obsessive thinking, or taking something personally? Together, we’ll explore how perceptions arise, which ones we may have outgrown, and which ones still pull us into repetitive stories. Drawing on the Buddhist teaching that what the mind frequently ponders becomes its inclination, we’ll explore how awareness can open new ways of relating to our experience.