Professional Meditation & Mindfulness Teacher Training
Deepen your meditation practice. Change the way you see yourself and the world. Share the power of meditation and mindfulness with your community. Become a meditation and mindfulness teacher.
Apply now for the next cohort beginning April 26, 2025.
The Meditation Teacher Academy is one of the most well-respected meditation and mindfulness teacher training programs available today. It’s run by the McLean Meditation Institute, an organization dedicated to educating meditation and mindfulness instructors to the highest standards of excellence.
Since 2012, hundreds of meditation and mindfulness teachers have been certified worldwide and are now creating a ripple effect of peace and kindness in their communities.
The Meditation Teacher Academy’s 300-hour curriculum will help you deepen your personal practice, truly get to know yourself, and discover more meaning and purpose in your life. You’ll be personally trained and mentored by Sarah McLean and the stellar faculty of the Meditation Teacher Academy so you can become the most effective and masterful teacher of meditation and mindfulness that you can be.
Program Overview
The Meditation & Mindfulness Teacher Certification program begins with a curriculum to refine and deepen your daily personal meditation practice and create a more mindful lifestyle. It culminates with a two weekend virtual intensive and teaching practicum during which you will gain all the skills you need to teach meditation and mindfulness to any community. The entire training can be completed in less than a year – all from the comfort of your own home.
The training is delivered in two components: Awaken & Become
- Awaken, the Meditation & Mindfulness Foundation Course, is a 9-month program designed to deepen your personal practice as you explore the vast world of meditation and mindfulness. Through the lens of mindfulness, you’ll examine your life including your relationship with yourself, your world, your work, your daily routine, your spiritual practices, your inner dialogue, and your intuition. You’ll also be introduced to a wide variety of contemplative practices – including dozens of mindfulness and meditation techniques – each designed to support your evolution and deepen your personal meditation practice. For those only interested in furthering their spiritual growth, Awaken can be attended without taking the teaching component.
- Become, the Meditation & Mindfulness Teacher Training Certification Course, is a 3-month training that you start toward the end of the Awaken course. This training offers a dive deep into the skills and practices you’ll need to master in order to become an effective meditation teacher, guide, or mentor. Become culminates with a two-weekend virtual Intensive and teaching practicum during which you’ll try out your new skills. You are required to attend the Intensive live to earn your certification.
Application & Fees
Those who have a committed personal, daily silent meditation practice are invited to apply to the Meditation Teacher Academy. The training starts April 26, 2025.
Admissions:
Here’s how to apply:
- Fill out an application.
- Have an interview with the director of the program.
- You’ll be invited to enroll if it’s determined that the program is a fit for you. You’ll receive the Enrollment Agreement.
- Once you read and sign the agreement, and pay the deposit and/ortuition, you’ll be welcomed into the the program!
Cohort 33 Tuition:
- Early Enrollment: $3195 USD (when you pay in full on or before February 28, 2025 – save $800)
- Regular Enrollment: $3995 USD (when you pay in full on or before April 26, 2025)
- A $500 payment is due to reserve your spot. The balance of the tuition is due and payable in full on or before the start of the Training.
Have you Heard the Call?
Teaching Meditation and Mindfulness is a Calling, Perhaps You’ve Heard the Call.
Those of us who practice meditation have lives infused with peace, creativity, and compassion. We’ve experienced transformation on every level: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Because of this, many of us who have experienced the benefits of meditation and mindfulness have a deep desire to share them with others so they too can benefit.
At MMI, we believe a new meditator should be mentored by an experienced professional: someone with care and concern who can take the mystery out of meditation and mindfulness to make them truly accessible to their students. We believe it is everyone’s birthright to meditate, regardless of their cultural or religious traditions or upbringing, and all it takes is a great teacher and a willing student.
A professional meditation and mindfulness teacher is someone who walks their talk as well as has the tools to mentor a student every step of the way. They are qualified to teach not only the basics: what mindfulness and meditation are, keys to a successful practice, how to confidently practice a variety of techniques, address personal concerns, share the myriad of scientifically benefits, and how to navigate any obstacles they may face in practice, and how to sustain an everyday meditation and mindfulness practice, but also how to recognize the signs along the way toward expanded awareness.
Find out if this training is for you. Set up a time to connect with the director of the program, Sarah McLean, here.
Is Teaching Right for You?
Will You Make a Great Teacher?
Learning to meditate can be a fundamentally transformative experience, essential for those longing to live peacefully in our modern world. Teaching people to meditate and how to live a more mindful life expands on this experience. As a meditation and mindfulness teacher, your work in the world will be more fulfilling and your own personal meditation and mindfulness practice will evolve and deepen.
If you are looking for more passion, meaning, and purpose in your life, and are a therapist, counseling professional, educator, life coach, executive, manager, healer, yoga teacher, or simply someone who wants to deepen the work you’re already doing in the world, and you are committed to being a guide for others and called to serve a greater cause, the meditation and mindfulness teacher training at the Meditation Teacher Academy is designed for you. By sharing the power of mindfulness and meditation with your community, family, clients, or patients, you can help them embark on a path towards newfound strength, vitality, resilience, creativity, and well-being in their everyday lives.
A great meditation and mindfulness teacher has these qualities:
- A dedicated personal meditation practice, one that they’ve been doing every day for a substantial length of time;
- A commitment to their own contemplative practice even when times are tough… or, if they started because times were tough, they remain committed to their practice even when life became easier;
- Experience in the tangible benefits of meditation in their own lives and the willingness to share them;
- Mindful and kind attention as well as mental, physical, and emotional balance;
- A grounded, yet light-hearted approach to life;
- Respect for other people’s personal beliefs and credo, no matter how different they may be from their own;
- A desire to support and empower others recognizing each person’s inherent worth and common humanity;
- The ability to share deep knowledge with passion and clarity;
- Deep knowledge of the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual science-based benefits of meditation;
- A direct understanding of the interconnectedness we all share.
Hundreds of graduates of the Meditation Teacher Academy include:
- Physicians, Nurses, Midwives, Medical School Students;
- Psychologists, Therapists, Counselors, Social Workers, Addiction Professionals;
- Massage Therapists, Physical Therapists, Acupuncturists, Healers;
- Educators, Elementary and High School Teachers, College Professors;
- Yoga Teachers, Pilates Instructors, Physical Trainers, Fitness Gurus;
- Health and Wellness Coaches;
- Media professionals, Authors;
- People who have retired who want to give back to those in their industry;
- Parents and others who want to share a powerful, natural stress-reduction and healing modality with people they care about.
Start your journey today at the Meditation Teacher Academy and become an inspiring teacher, an effective educator, and a trusted mentor trained to teach scientifically proven, time-tested meditation techniques and mindfulness practices to those who want to gain the benefits of better health, a clearer, less anxious mind, brain health, more creativity, and a true sense of well-being. You can help create more peace on this planet, one person at a time.
Find out if this training is for you. Set up a call to talk with Sarah about your goals, here.
A Message from Sarah McLean, director of the Meditation Teacher Academy
I am excited to invite you to be a part of this exciting program. You’ll love the training you receive at the Meditation Teacher Academy. It’s deep, transformative, and rigorous, and requires a serious personal commitment to the studies as well as to your personal practice. It’s the program I wish were around when I heard the call to teach meditation.
My meditation journey started in the 1980’s when I learned advanced meditation techniques and ancient mind/body health practices from India called Ayurveda. I was living in a Transcendental Meditation community and working with Dr. Deepak Chopra. He then moved to California and asked me to come to open up a new mind/body wellness center where I served as the Education Director for years. I then continued my studies and deepened my meditation practice while living in a traditional ashram in India. I was later exposed to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition as I taught English to Tibetan Buddhist nuns living in exile in North India. I returned to the states and lived in residence as a lay monk at a remote Zen Buddhist training center. Two years later, I became the director of the School for the Work of Byron Katie, traveling around the U.S. and Europe sharing the practices of self-inquiry.
In 2006, I founded the McLean Meditation Institute in Sedona, Arizona – a destination for visitors near and far who wanted to learn how to meditate. In 2011, the Meditation Teacher Academy opened and the first cohort of teachers were certified in 2012 with a tried and true program designed to demystify meditation and mindfulness and make the teachings accessible to everyone.
In 2019, we relocated to California where the Institute continues to deliver its teacher training curriculum virtually – a necessity born during the pandemic of 2020. The shutdown proved to be a pivotal time that awakened people of all ages to the need for tools to help them alleviate anxiety, increase well being, and create harmony in the midst of so much uncertainty at home and work. This time truly illustrated the need for more quality meditation and mindfulness teachers.
In short, I’ve been teaching meditation since 1993 and began teaching meditation and mindfulness teachers soon thereafter. I’ve assisted in the development of curriculum and courses for leading-edge authors and educators, among them notables such as Debbie Ford, Margo Anand, Deepak Chopra, Gary Zukav, and Byron Katie. I am passionate about education, well being, and the world of meditation and living with more mindfulness.
I believe everyone can learn to meditate when they are taught correctly, and everyone should have access to these practices so they can find relief from stress and strife. That’s why I train meditation and mindfulness teachers to be able to walk into a corporation, a healthcare facility, a prison, or a classroom and confidently offer a variety of contemporary meditation and mindfulness modalities to suit their needs. MMI Certified Meditation & Mindfulness Teachers learn to teach techniques, not traditions, so the programs are suitable for anyone.
I truly hope you’ll consider being a part of this transformative program and join the community of teachers that are dedicated to helping to make the world a more peaceful place.
