Tibetan Kagyü & Nyingma · online, every day
Free guided meditation twice a day, every day of the week, over Zoom. No experience needed, no membership, nothing to buy — just log in and sit.
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The weekly rhythm
Everything runs on Eastern Time, on the single Zoom link below. Come for one session or come every day — there's no roll call.
Have Zoom installed and arrive a few minutes early in case it needs to update. Enter with your real name and, if you're comfortable, your video on. You'll sit briefly in a waiting room before you're let in — mute yourself on arrival.
New to meditation? Say so when you enter, or email ahead — an instructor will walk you through the basics in a breakout room before the group sits. Come and go quietly if you need to step away mid-session; that's expected, not rude.
Who's teaching
Founder & senior teacher
Practicing and teaching for more than fifty years, John was a close student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and co-edited several volumes of his collected works. He co-founded Naropa University, later serving as its CEO and head of Buddhist Studies, and co-founded this group in its earlier form as the Westchester Buddhist Center.
Teacher
A student since 1978, Michael received the Vajrayogini abhisheka in 1985. He holds an M.A. in Buddhist and Western Psychology from Naropa (1980) and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Colorado Boulder (1986), and continues to study with Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche.
Teacher
Barry has practiced since 1995 and completed the Shambhala Training path. He has been teaching within the group since 2015, often leading the evening sessions and discussion group.
Lineage & history
Path of Awakening carries the Tibetan Kagyü and Nyingma teachings as transmitted by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and his students — the same lineage behind Shambhala Training and Naropa University. Trungpa Rinpoche's approach treats meditation as something to be lived with, not escaped into: ordinary, daily, and unhurried.
The group met for years in Westchester, New York as the Westchester Buddhist Center, and before that as New York Buddha Dharma. When the daily sits moved onto Zoom, the name changed to match — the practice and the people in it are the same ones who've been sitting together for decades, just no longer bound to one room.
Group retreats continue in person at Karmé Chöling, the Shambhala retreat center in Barnet, Vermont, most recently in 2022 and 2025.
Past programs
Keeping this running
Path of Awakening is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Attendance has never depended on paying — donations from those who can afford them keep the sits free for everyone else.