Amita Schmidt

The most valuable thing you can do is awaken to your true nature in this lifetime. For 25 years Amita has taught as a Vipassana Buddhist meditation teacher. She was a resident teacher at Insight Meditation Society (IMS). She has also worked for 35 years as a licensed psychotherapist in healing trauma, depression and anxiety. She cares about helping people with depression and anxiety awaken. Amita is the author of the biography, "Dipa Ma: The Life and Legacy of a Buddhist Master."

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Reviews

Nadja

Mar 30, 2026

Im 62 and have struggled financially my entire adult life. I started meditating in 2017 or 2018 as a means to fight depression, and it helped and has kept me from having to take prescription medication, but the past year or so has me back to where I’m anxious or depressed any time I’m not meditating 😂 and for the first time, the things I have always loved to do have lost their shine. I wish I could just sleep all the time. Your opening words gave me hope. I know that pain is inevitable, but suffering is something we do to ourselves, and I want so much to get beyond the suffering. The free content on Insight Timer has been a godsend. I don’t know what I would do without it.

Anthony Pater

Mar 30, 2026

I developed a sense of everything yet nothing at all being real and important. “Be willing to be you and the emptiness together” is the intention for me to embrace. Thank you

Erika

Jan 13, 2026

Thank you.

Nicole B

Jan 12, 2026

So lovely! I’ve never been to the bottom of the ocean, but today I did!!!! Thank you for taking me to new spaces of peace, rest and wonder!

Peggy Bull

Nov 8, 2025

That was beautiful. It's hard to capture the mood of Alzheimer's and you did. I eat dinner with my husband who lives in memory care and a posse of ladies who are kind and lovely and very confused and quietly or loudly anxious. My husband dementia is Lewy Bodies so his issues are a different shade of confused.

Stephen Fox

Nov 7, 2025

This was really helpful for me to hear this morning. I have a rather large bag of potatoes, that I'm lugging around daily, but I'm not giving up. Thank you.🙏🏻

Peggy Bull

Nov 4, 2025

That was lovely. I started my day with this. I need to focus. Ok. How? Hold hands with HP. TY

Daryl King

Nov 3, 2025

Beautiful. Impermanence, as you said, is a very good reason to not look back with pain, or forward with fear. I am trying. I'm someone who has pushed people and opportunities away out of past trauma and fear (from childhood abandonment issues) - that I am unable to get back. Those losses work against me because I can't get that precious love back, that is itself impermanent - and the very reason why it is cherished, nourished, nurtured, and even fought for. So the only thing I can do is learn from my regrets, and really really try to stay in the now.

Marion Sartor

Oct 29, 2025

Wow! I needed to hear this. I’m struggling and I feel very alone at this time. I am carrying a lot of resentment towards others who are oblivious to my difficulties. I love the analogy to carrying a bag of potatoes. It’s so true. And the ideas of living in one’s body below the neck and to identify feelings but to not believe them as the truth are concepts that I need constant reminding. Thank you for this talk.

Barbara Hudson

Oct 23, 2025

Excellent talk. Loved the French press breathing analogy and the bookend practice for starting and ending each day. Thank you for sharing your experience and wisdom. 🙏🏻☯️🪷

About

Speaks English

Joined Insight Timer in March 2018


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