Mindful IN MoCo was created by Neil Schmitzer-Torbert to support people in their practice of mindfulness and meditation, especially in Montgomery County (MoCo), Indiana (IN). Neil is an MBSR teacher (Qualified Level 1, through the Global Mindfulness Collaborative) and offers local MBSR classes, mindfulness workshops, and meditation groups.
Neil started to practice meditation in high school. Growing up in the rural Midwest, he did not have access to formal training, and mainly studied meditation through books on Zen Buddhism.
Later, as a psychology major at Knox College, Neil had the opportunity to study with Dr. Tim Kasser. Dr. Kasser also had an interest in meditation, and helped Neil to design and conduct several research projects to explore the impact of meditation on wellbeing. During that time, Neil became interested in academic research on meditation, especially the mindfulness-based stress reduction program (MBSR) developed by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn.
With funding from Knox College, through a Ronald E. McNair program, Neil had the opportunity in the summer of 1999 to do a summer research internship at the Center for Mindfulness, founded by Dr. Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachuetts Medical Center.
In the internship, Neil focused on analysing data collected from a study of MBSR conducted at a college in Massachusetts, and he also had the opportunity to complete his first MBSR course that summer.
And, it was at the Center for Mindfulness that Neil first encountered the book, Zen and the Brain, which helped him decide to pursue a career in neuroscience.
After the summer of 1999, Neil’s main meditation practice was rooted primarily in Zen Buddhism, and during graduate school he studied at the Dharma Field Zen Center in Minneapolis. Today, he practices with the Sanshin Zen Community in Bloomington, and the Great Wind Zendo in Danville, IN. He also blogs about the relationship between Zen and science on his blog, Neural Buddhist.
Late in the COVID-19 pandemic, Neil started to feel that it would be helpful to make mindfulness-based stress reduction available locally, for the Wabash College community (where he teaches) and the Montgomery County community (where he and his family have made their home).
So, he began the process of training as an MBSR teacher, and completed the first level of training in the spring of 2024. Since then, he has been leading meditation groups, workshops, and offering MBSR classes in Montgomery County.