About
Leigh Brasington is a meditation teacher in the Meditation tradition.
Teaching focus
Brasington's central teaching is the jhanas as Ayya Khema taught them, with a technical, step-by-step approach that begins with extended access concentration on the breath and then guides practitioners into the first jhana through the deliberate cultivation of pleasant bodily sensation, often called sukkha jhana practice. From there he works through the higher jhanas with the same technical precision: each is identified by its specific factors, and the transitions between them are taught as practical skills rather than mystical events. He pairs jhana practice with insight teaching, generally returning to vipassana after stretches of concentration practice to use the stabilized mind for direct investigation of impermanence and non-self. His teaching is heavily grounded in the suttas, particularly the texts on right concentration, and he's explicit that the jhanas in his approach are the lighter sutta jhanas described in the early texts rather than the heavier Visuddhimagga jhanas of later commentarial tradition. That distinction matters in jhana circles. Across his work runs a careful technical voice and a refusal to dress up practice in spiritual language.
Background
Leigh Brasington is an American Insight Meditation teacher best known as a senior Western teacher of the jhanas, the deep states of meditative absorption that the Buddha described in detail in the Pali suttas but that few Western teachers have specialized in. Brasington trained for many years under the late Ven. Ayya Khema, the German-born nun who was one of the more important late-twentieth-century Western teachers of the jhanas, and he's continued to teach the practice both in retreat and through his book Right Concentration: A Practical Guide to the Jhanas. His Dharma Seed archive holds about 175 talks across more than 20 retreats. His teaching is precise and practical. He treats the jhanas as accessible to serious lay practitioners rather than as the exclusive territory of long-retreat monastics, and his retreats often work systematically through the practice with concrete instruction and individual interviews. He's not a charismatic teacher in the usual sense; his style is matter-of-fact, technical, and uninterested in spiritual decoration. Students looking for a precise, technique-oriented teacher tend to settle in with him quickly, and students looking for inspirational dharma may find his style dry. He continues to teach jhana retreats in the US and internationally. His approach to jhana practice has been important in the wider Western insight scene because it makes the deep concentration states that the Buddha described in detail in the suttas accessible to serious lay practitioners rather than treating them as the exclusive territory of long-retreat monastics. That position is contested in some Theravada circles, and his published work is partly an argument for it as well as a practical guide to the practice itself.
Lineage
Brasington's primary teacher was Ven. Ayya Khema, the German-born Theravada nun and one of the more influential late-twentieth-century Western teachers of the jhanas. He's a layperson and teaches independently as well as at insight retreat centers. He's part of a small network of Western lay teachers who specialize in jhana practice, distinct from but adjacent to the broader IMS and Spirit Rock insight community.
What to expect
Retreats with Brasington are technical and structured. Expect long sittings focused on building access concentration, individual interviews where he checks the specific factors of jhana experience, and dharma talks that often draw closely on the Pali suttas. The pacing is careful and the teaching is precise rather than charismatic. Practitioners who want the felt experience of deep concentration as a workable Western lay practice tend to find him a clear and useful teacher.