Intro

Buddhist tools for forgiveness, boredom, worry, and getting out of your head.

Meditation teacher Bart van Melik leads a live community Q&A — and the questions that come in are ones most meditators have quietly wrestled with for years.

Bart is the guiding teacher at Community Meditation Center in New York, where he leads weekly sessions grounded in Buddhist tradition. In this episode, he takes on four of the most common sticking points in practice: forgiveness, boredom, disconnection from the body, and the spiral of anxious "what if" thinking.

His approach throughout is warm, precise, and grounded — less about achieving a particular state and more about learning to hold whatever arises with curiosity and kindness.

Topics covered:

• Forgiveness — why forcing it can backfire, what it means to "bypass" difficult emotions, and the reframe that changes everything: forgiveness as giving up all hope for a better past

• Boredom — how to get genuinely curious about it instead of fighting it, and what it can teach you about why you reach for your phone

• Getting into your body — why embodiment looks different for everyone, and how to find the activities (yes, even mindful salsa dancing or vacuuming) that make it easier

• Worry and "what if" thoughts — the Buddhist framing of worry as an obstacle to clear seeing, and a simple breathwork technique from Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche — exhale heavy, exhale calm — that works even in the hardest moments

• Community as practice — the Buddha's teaching that friendship and community isn't half the path. It's the whole thing.

About Bart van Melik: Bart van Melik is a meditation teacher and guiding teacher at Community Meditation Center, a global and local community that meets weekly via Zoom. Monthly sessions are donation-based and open to all. Learn more at https://www.cmc-ny.org/.

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Join Dan and Emmy Award-winning journalist Allison Gilbert at 92NY on May 17th for a live conversation about how mindfulness can deepen connection and combat loneliness, available in person and via streaming. Register here. Join Dan, Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18, 2026. Register here.

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