Today on the Kind Heartfulness Podcast, we’re honored to welcome Barbara Bogatin — a world-class cellist and long-time practitioner of Buddhist meditation. A member of the San Francisco Symphony since 1994, Barbara’s musical career has taken her from the stages of the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera to intimate chamber ensembles across the world.
But Barbara’s path is more than music. She’s also a dedicated student of Buddhism, with over three decades of Vipassana practice and deep study of the Dharma. Her lifelong meditation practice deeply informs not just how she plays, but how she lives — and teaches.
Together with her husband, neuroscientist Clifford Saron, she leads workshops like “The Buddha, the Brain, and Bach,” weaving together insights from Buddhist contemplative traditions, neuroscience, and the art of performance.
In today’s episode, Barbara reflects on how mindfulness and Dharma practice have shaped her as a musician, a teacher, and a human being — and how we can all bring more presence and compassion into our own lives.

You can find out more about Barbara at here website: https://www.barbarabogatin.com/home

Scroll down the page to find out about her upcoming workshops such as The Buddha, the Brain and Bach or Mindfulness for Musicians.

In Tibetan Buddhism, lineage is everything — a sacred thread connecting teacher to student across generations. But what happens when modern meditators enter the mix? Anthropologist and Buddhist practitioner Dr. Ana Christina Lopes joins us to explore how tradition evolves when it meets real lives and real practice. Is lineage just about preserving the past, or can it also be a living, creative force?

Tune in as we unpack how today’s practitioners are not only inheriting the Dharma, but actively reshaping it.

Dr. Ana Cristina focuses on the translation and study of sūtras, particularly the Buddhāvataṃsakasūtra.
Ana Cristina received her PhD in Anthropology from the University of Sao Paulo and her MA in Buddhist Studies from Columbia University. She studied Classical Tibetan as part of her PhD research, in postdocs at Columbia and Harvard universities, and at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute.
Ana Cristina was faculty at University of Virginia and UNC-Greensboro. She also taught at RYI-Austria and Stanford University, where she is Visiting Fellow at the Center for South Asia. She is the author of Tibetan Buddhism in Diaspora: Cultural re-signification in practice and institutions (Routledge, 2015)

Once again, we have the great honor to have Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche as our guest. In this episode, Rinpoche talks about why Buddhism is so appealing in today’s world, the confluence of Buddhist philosophy and modern science, and what we can do to ensure Buddhism is able to continue to thrive. Rinpoche, recently inaugurated a spectacular new temple in Lubini, the birthplace of Buddha. It was selected the 9th most important place to visit in 2025 by the New York Times. Rinpoche explains why he felt it was so important to build this temple, a lifelong aspiration of his. Some of his answers might surprise you.