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Barbara Bogatin
Barbara Bogatin
Cellist, Mindfulness Educator
Cellist, Mindfulness Educator
"The embodied wisdom we cultivate during meditation practice can become meaningful skills that help us in our music-making---mindful practice, quieting the critical mind, and maintaining a calm presence in stressful situations.
For me, meditation and music practice are like two sides of the same coin."
Barbara Bogatin is a cellist with the San Francisco Symphony, chamber music player, and educator in the field of mindfulness training for musicians. In 35 years of practicing insight meditation, she has integrated the embodied knowledge this contemplative work nurtures into effective methods for improving instrumental practice and performance. Barbara has presented "Mindfulness for Musicians" seminars at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Juilliard School, the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, the University of Nevada, Reno, Louisville Academy of Music, San Domenico School, and the One Heart Institute Summer Program.
Along with her husband, neuroscientist Clifford Saron, she has led workshops on meditation and music practice called “The Buddha, the Brain, and Bach,” at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, the Esalen Institute, Stanford Symposium for Music and the Brain, Telluride Compassion Festival, USC Center for Mindfulness Science, South Africa Conference on Mindfulness, the Ecology of Mind and Matter Symposium in Todi, Italy, and the Nirakara Institute in Madrid, Spain.
Barbara is a certified graduate of Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach's Mindfulness Mentor Training Program.
Performing and teaching with Sylvia Boostein and Friends
On-Land in Spirit Rock Community Meditation Center (Woodacre, CA), or Online via Zoom
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
10:00AM – 1:00PM PT
Join us to celebrate the arrival of 2025 with the New Year team—Sylvia Boorstein (a founding Spirit Rock teacher), Brahmani Liebman (Kripalu Yoga Teacher, Trainer & Mindful Movement Teacher), Barbara Bogatin (San Francisco Symphony cellist), and Barbara Borden (Drums, Percussion, The Keeper of the Beat)—as we individually and collectively respond to the fundamental question, “What, in challenging times, keeps the mind alert and buoyant, and the heart hopeful and generous?”
Ukiah, CA
June 15-18, 2025
This unique 4-day Mindful Audition Bootcamp brings an invaluable perspective to audition preparation and implementation. The ancient contemplative practices of meditation, mindful breathing, and movement techniques drawn from yoga and Buddhist traditions are combined with the best contemporary methods of audition training for today’s musicians.
Ukiah, CA
June 18-21, 2025
We will explore how to integrate the skills cultivated through insight meditation into your instrumental practice and performance. Each day will feature a different topic of discussion and related experiential workshop.
There will also be opportunities to have one-on-one sessions with Barbara and other faculty members.
This program is open to students, professionals, and amateurs with different instruments.
Teisendorf, Germany
July 11-13, 2025
Our workshop invites you to explore the fascinating connection between contemplative practice, brain research and music. We immerse ourselves in the world of guided meditations and discover how they can enrich our entire lives.
Rangjung Yeshe Gomde, Austria
July 27-31, 2025
This year, coming down to earth, as it were, ESRI 2025 will begin exploring meaningful ways of living together, braiding together the theoretical questions of the two years before with the concrete, ethical dimensions of our everyday lives. Far from creating another duality, this year’s approach will be "theor-ethical", asking questions from the ground up.
This year marks the final year in a three-year thematic arc at ESRI, “Caring for Life”, which aims to foreground caring as an active, processual, and participative feature of being sentient in a wildly complex and rapidly evolving ecosystem.
With meditation teacher Nikki Mirghafori
Rhinebeck, NY
August 17-22, 2025
"Whatever you frequently reflect and ponder upon, that becomes the inclination of your mind," the Buddha said. In other words, you are what you practice.
Throughout this experiential retreat, we examine this essential observation from our intertwined perspectives of contemplative practice, brain science, and music.
With meditation teacher Nikki Mirghafori
Big Sur, CA
September 15-19, 2025
You are what you practice. Or, as the Buddha said, “Whatever you frequently reflect and ponder upon, that becomes the inclination of your mind.”
This essential observation is examined from our intertwined perspectives on contemplative practice, brain science, and music. Through interactive inquiries and guided meditations, Nikki Mirghafori will lead a journey into mindfulness and compassion cultivation. Neuroscientist Clifford Saron will take us on a voyage of discovery into the mysteries of the brain and neuroplasticity. San Francisco Symphony cellist Barbara Bogatin will inspire us with Bach and provide a rare glimpse from inside the process of musical creativity.
I'd love to hear from you -- with inquiries about workshops, seminars, or private coaching please email me at
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