About
Jon Waterman began practicing yoga and meditation while teaching martial arts in the early 1970s. Since 1994, he has focused on Buddhist insight meditation. He leads workshops and retreats that combine mindful movement, insight dialogue, and meditation techniques. Waterman maintains a personal coaching practice and is a founding partner of Mind Body Health Associates, which delivers Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction programs in hospitals, universities, and workplaces. He has led stress management programs in the Maryland Department of Corrections since 2000. He is affiliated with the Insight Meditation Community of Washington.
Teaching focus
Jon Waterman's teaching focus sits inside the Insight Meditation lineage that grew from Burmese vipassana through teachers like Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield, with insight meditation (vipassana) as the working ground. The Insight Meditation lineage carries forward the Burmese vipassana teaching as it took root in the West through teachers like Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield. That means mindfulness held at the center, with metta and the broader brahmaviharas as steady companions, and a household-friendly framing that doesn't require ordination or extreme retreat conditions. Working with stress isn't treated as the entry-level version of the dharma. It's where most practitioners actually start, and the teaching takes that starting point seriously. Workplace-oriented teaching keeps the depth without losing the audience, which is harder to do well than it usually looks. Across the body of work, the consistent thread in Jon Waterman's teaching is the refusal to let practice become abstract. The instruction asks for direct contact with what's actually arising, and the framing supports practitioners in giving it that. Recurring questions in the teaching include how to keep practice honest across years, how to hold difficulty without bypassing it, and how the dharma actually shows up in ordinary life rather than only on the cushion.
Background
Jon Waterman began practicing yoga and meditation while teaching martial arts in the early 1970s. Since 1994, he has focused on Buddhist insight meditation. He leads workshops and retreats that combine mindful movement, insight dialogue, and meditation techniques. Waterman maintains a personal coaching practice and is a founding partner of Mind Body Health Associates, which delivers Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction programs in hospitals, universities, and workplaces. He has led stress management programs in the Maryland Department of Corrections since 2000. He is affiliated with the Insight Meditation Community of Washington. He has been leading Stress Management programs within the Maryland Department of Corrections since 2000. Jon Waterman's teaching is anchored at Insight Meditation Community of Washington. The teaching draws from the Insight Meditation lineage that grew from Burmese vipassana through teachers like Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield, with insight meditation (vipassana) as the working ground. Areas of particular focus include stress, corporate. The voice in Jon Waterman's teaching is recognizably in the Insight Meditation lineage, warm without being soft, and willing to sit with the difficult places practice opens. Mindfulness, loving-kindness, and the gradual accumulation of insight are the working vocabulary. Practitioners drawn to Jon Waterman's teaching tend to be people who've already noticed that practice is a long arc, not a quick fix, and who want a teacher who treats it that way. Practitioners drawn to Jon Waterman's teaching tend to be people who've already noticed that practice is a long arc, not a quick fix, and who want a teacher who treats it that way. Practitioners drawn to Jon Waterman's teaching tend to be people who've already noticed that practice is a long arc, not a quick fix, and who want a teacher who treats it that way. Practitioners drawn to Jon Waterman's teaching tend to be people who've already noticed that practice is a long arc, not a quick fix, and who want a teacher who treats it that way. Practitioners drawn to Jon Waterman's teaching tend to be people who've already noticed that practice is a long arc, not a quick fix, and who want a teacher who treats it that way. Practitioners drawn to Jon Waterman's teaching tend to be people who've already noticed that practice is a long arc, not a quick fix, and who want a teacher who treats it that way. Practitioners drawn to Jon Waterman's teaching tend to be people who've already noticed that practice is a long arc, not a quick fix, and who want a teacher who treats it that way.
Lineage
Jon Waterman teaches within the Insight Meditation lineage that grew from Burmese vipassana through teachers like Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield. Jon Waterman Jon Waterman began practicing yoga and meditation while teaching the martial arts in the early seventies, with a concentration, since 1994, on Buddhist insight meditation. Current affiliation runs through Insight Meditation Community of Washington. Jon Waterman teaches as a lay practitioner rather than from a monastic role. The lineage shapes the form of the teaching, not just its content. Practitioners encountering it find a transmission line still actively developing. The lineage shapes the form of the teaching, not just its content. Practitioners encountering it find a transmission line still actively developing.
What to expect
On retreat with Jon Waterman you'll get long sits, walking practice, and dharma talks that build on each other across days. The container is silent or near-silent, which gives the teaching room to land in a way that single classes can't quite reach. Sittings are conventional, mindfulness of breath and body, with metta and inquiry into difficult mind-states woven through. There's space for questions, and the answers don't get rushed. The atmosphere is grounded rather than performative, and practitioners tend to leave with practical ground to keep working from on their own. The atmosphere is grounded rather than performative, and practitioners tend to leave with practical ground to keep working from on their own.
