Vipassana / Insight · Online
11-week, 75-hour online teacher training with Susan Piver, rooted in Shamatha-Vipashyana Buddhist meditation. Covers foundational Buddhist teachings, deepening personal practice, and responsible teaching skills. Limited to 50 students. Includes one-year OHP Sangha membership.
Open Heart Project Meditation Teacher Training is the eleven-week, 75-hour online program led by Susan Piver, a published author in the Shambhala Tibetan-Buddhist lineage who founded the Open Heart Project in 2011. The program runs in cohorts of up to fifty students and trains lay practitioners to teach Shamatha-Vipashyana, the calm-abiding-and-insight pair that anchors most Tibetan and Theravada-influenced practice. The framing is explicitly Buddhist, not secular. Piver's approach treats meditation instruction as a relational craft. Students learn to teach the technique itself, but more of the curriculum sits in the soft tissue around technique: how to hold a Q&A without flattening it, how to address spiritual bypassing, how to speak about emptiness and selflessness without reaching for clichés, how to handle a student who's having a hard time. Foundational Buddhist teachings are covered at the level a teacher needs to hold them honestly with students, not at the level of academic Buddhology. The eleven weeks are structured as live cohort sessions plus practice work between meetings. Reading draws on Piver's own texts and on the wider Shambhala curriculum she trained in. Each cohort includes a one-year membership in the Open Heart Project Sangha after completion, which gives graduates a place to keep practicing alongside other teachers and to attend ongoing dharma talks. Tuition runs roughly $2,200 to $2,400. What the program is not: it isn't a Yoga Alliance route, an MBSR pathway, or a clinical credential. It doesn't certify graduates to teach in hospitals or healthcare settings as a clinical intervention. It's a Buddhist teacher training for people who want to teach meditation in studios, communities, online sanghas, or one-to-one. The cap of fifty students per cohort keeps the relationship to Piver and her assisting teachers close enough that mentorship is real, not nominal.
The eleven-week arc covers four interlocking strands. First, the technique itself: shamatha (calm-abiding) on the breath as the foundation, then vipashyana (insight) practices that turn attention toward the nature of mind. Second, Buddhist context: the four noble truths, the three marks of existence, refuge, bodhichitta, and the basic Mahayana framing that distinguishes this lineage from secular mindfulness. Third, teaching skills: how to give clear instructions, how to handle silence, how to lead a guided meditation without overdoing it, and how to debrief practice with a student. Fourth, ethics and the teacher-student relationship: scope of practice, when to refer out, how to hold confidences, and how to stay a student yourself while teaching. Writing assignments and recorded teaching practice run throughout. By week eleven, each student delivers a full guided sit and a short dharma reflection that the cohort and assisting teachers respond to.
Delivery is fully online via live cohort calls with Piver and assisting teachers. Cohorts are capped at fifty students, which is small enough for everyone to be heard in a session and to receive direct response on teaching practice. Between live sessions, students complete daily practice, reading assignments, and recorded teaching exercises that get peer and instructor feedback. The pacing is weekly, not self-paced; students move through the material together. After the eleven weeks, graduates roll into a one-year Open Heart Project Sangha membership, which keeps them in regular contact with the lineage's ongoing teaching schedule and with each other.
Graduates receive an Open Heart Project Meditation Teacher certificate from Susan Piver and a one-year OHP Sangha membership. They're qualified to teach Shamatha-Vipashyana in non-clinical settings: studios, online groups, communities, retreats, and private clients. The certificate is lineage-affiliated, not state-licensed or clinically accredited. Common post-graduation paths include launching small online classes, leading retreats with experienced co-teachers, integrating meditation into existing coaching or writing practice, or building an ongoing weekly sit for a community.
An established personal meditation practice is expected, ideally with prior exposure to Shamatha-Vipashyana or a Tibetan lineage practice. No ordination, retreat-hours minimum, or formal credential is required to apply. Application includes a personal statement; admission isn't open enrollment. The program assumes students can commit to weekly live sessions plus daily practice across the eleven weeks.
Open Heart Project sits between two ends. On one side, programs like MBSR teacher training at Brown or UMass certify people to teach a specific eight-week clinical protocol in healthcare settings; OHP doesn't. On the other side, full ordination tracks in Shambhala or other Tibetan organizations require years of nyinthun, shedra, and seminary; OHP is a lay teacher training, not a clergy path. Among Buddhist lay teacher routes, it's relatively short (eleven weeks versus the multi-year programs at Spirit Rock or IMS) and relatively affordable, with the trade-off that depth comes from the student's existing practice rather than from program length.
| Location | Online |
| Tradition | Vipassana / Insight |
| Format | Online |
| Training hours | 75 |
| Duration | 11 weeks |
| Estimated cost | $2,200–$2,400 |