San Francisco Meditation Teacher Visits San Antonio

Howard Cohn's public lecture on Friday, Feb. 1. (Photo by Miranda Smith)

By Miranda Smith

Veteran yogis and meditation newbies alike gathered at Friends Meeting House Friday evening in anticipation of Howard “Howie” Cohn’s lecture, “Celebrating the Three Jewels: Awakening, Truth, and Community.”

Cohn is a founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in the San Francisco Bay area and has been their senior teacher for more than 30 years. He is known for leading Vipassana meditation, also known as Insight or Mindfulness meditation.

In his presentation, Cohn conceptualized the practice of mindfulness as an “awakening.” He said that such a state of awareness focused on what is “directly immediate and real,” termed dharma, or “truth,” in Buddhism. The premise helped emphasize a point that eventually became the core sentiment of the lecture: that truth is simply what is, rather than humankind’s spatially-detached conception of it.

“Awareness is wisdom, [so] our attention has intelligence,” Cohn told the audience.

Inviting the audience to personally experience this truth, Cohn concluded his lecture by initiating a mindful meditation. For about 30 minutes, the crowd sat in silence and simply observed the dharma, or present thoughts and surroundings.

Malcolm Fox, a junior religion major at Trinity who leads a weekly meditation session on campus, said that attending Cohn’s lecture re-affirmed the importance of mindfulness in the midst of the insecurity brought on by college life.

For Dr. Richard Reed, the Trinity anthropology professor who coordinated Cohn’s visit, the attraction of mindful meditation is that it “appeals to the inner-quest for something; the process of being here and now, thriving on simplicity.”

Noting that Cohn is remarkable on account of his popular presence in the meditation community, Reed believed that his informed charisma would inspire people from all walks of life.

Referred to as the “second generation” of acclaimed teachers who originally brought mindful meditation from Asia to the United States, Cohn has benefited from the mentorship of many prominent experts in meditation.

Besides Friday’s public lecture, Cohn also hosted all-day meditation workshops on Saturday and Sunday.