Larry Rosenberg (born December 7, 1932) is an American

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

teacher who founded the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

, in 1985. He is also a resident teacher there. Rosenberg was a professor of psychology at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

and

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...

. In addition to teaching at the

Insight Meditation ''Samatha'' (Pāli; sa, शमथ ''śamatha''; ), "calm," "serenity," "tranquillity of awareness," and ''vipassanā'' (Pāli; Sanskrit ''vipaśyanā''), literally "special, super (''vi-''), seeing (''-passanā'')", are two qualities of the ...

Center in Cambridge, he is also a senior teacher at the

Insight Meditation Society The Insight Meditation Society (IMS) is a non-profit organization for study of Buddhism located in Barre, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1975, by Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, and Joseph Goldstein and is rooted in the Theravada tradition. Its ...

in Barre, Massachusetts. Rosenberg was born to

Russian-Jewish The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest pop ...

immigrants and grew up in

Coney Island Coney Island is a peninsular neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, Manhattan Beach to its east, L ...

in a working-class family. His father, who had

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

leanings, came from 14 generations of

rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...

s. Rosenberg got his BS at

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...

and his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

in social psychology from the

, where he also subsequently taught. He later became an

assistant professor Assistant Professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States and Canada. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doctoral degree and general ...

in the Department of Psychiatry at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. Disappointed with his experience with the academia, he turned to intensive Buddhist practice. A major turning point that influenced this decision was his introduction to the teachings of

Jiddu Krishnamurti Jiddu Krishnamurti (; 11 May 1895 – 17 February 1986) was a philosopher, speaker and writer. In his early life, he was groomed to be the new World Teacher, an advanced spiritual position in the theosophical tradition, but later rejected thi ...

and

Vimala Thakar Vimala Thakar (born 15 April 1921 Ramnavmi day at Bilaspur and died on 11 March 2009 at Falgun Poornima at Mt. Abu) was an Indian social activist and spiritual teacher. Born into a middle-class family living at Akola city in Maharashtra state in In ...

. He received Zen training with Korean Master

Seung Sahn Seungsahn Haengwon (, August 1, 1927November 30, 2004), born Duk-In Lee, was a Korean Seon master of the Jogye Order and founder of the international Kwan Um School of Zen. He was the seventy-eighth Patriarch in his lineage. As one of the early ...

and Japanese Master Katagiri Roshi for eight years before coming to

Vipassana ''Samatha'' (Pāli; sa, शमथ ''śamatha''; ), "calm," "serenity," "tranquillity of awareness," and ''vipassanā'' (Pāli; Sanskrit ''vipaśyanā''), literally "special, super (''vi-''), seeing (''-passanā'')", are two qualities of the ...

Anagarika Munindra Anagarika Shri Munindra (1915 – October 14, 2003), also called Munindraji by his disciples, was an Indian Vipassanā meditation teacher, who taught many notable meditation teachers including Dipa Ma, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Sur ...

was his first Vipassana teacher. His book ''Breath by Breath'' is a clear description of the practice of

anapanasati Ānāpānasati (Pali; Sanskrit ''ānāpānasmṛti''), meaning "mindfulness of breathing" ("sati" means mindfulness; "ānāpāna" refers to inhalation and exhalation), paying attention to the breath. It is the quintessential form of Buddhist me ...

(mindful breath meditation). His emphasis on the breath as an object of meditation was, in part, inspired by his encounter with the Thai meditation teacher

Buddhadasa Phra Dharmakosācārya (Nguam Indapañño) ( th, พระธรรมโกศาจารย์ (เงื่อม อินฺทปญฺโญ); ), also known as Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu ( th, พุทธทาสภิกขุ; , 27 May 1906 � ...

. Anapanasati also forms the basis of his teachings at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center.

Books

* L. Rosenberg, ''Breath by Breath: The Liberating Practice of Insight Meditation'',

Shambhala Publications Shambhala Publications is an independent publishing company based in Boulder, Colorado. According to the company, it specializes in "books that present creative and conscious ways of transforming the individual, the society, and the planet". Man ...

, 2004. . * L. Rosenberg and D. Guy, ''Living In the Light of Death: On the Art of Being Truly Alive'', Shambhala Publications, 2001. * L. Rosenberg with Laura Zimmerman, ''Three Steps to Awakening: A Practice for Bringing Mindfulness to Life'', Shambhala Publications, 2013.

References

External links

Cambridge Insight Meditation Center

Dharma Seed , Larry Rosenberg's Dharma Talks
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosenberg, Larry 1932 births American people of Russian-Jewish descent American Theravada Buddhists Jewish American writers Brooklyn College alumni Harvard Medical School faculty Living people Buddhist writers Converts to Buddhism Converts to Buddhism from Judaism Theravada Buddhist spiritual teachers University of Chicago alumni University of Chicago faculty People from Coney Island American non-fiction writers Mindfulness (Buddhism) 21st-century American Jews