Contemplative Meditation
& Presence Teaching
Most modern meditation instruction reduce it to stress management or teach to technique, whether from a lineage or a textbook.
This work is about something more fundamental. Meditation taught here is a philosophy and practice of presence: not emptying the mind or achieving a state, but returning to awareness itself, with compassion and openness rather than force. From that ground, steadiness and clarity emerge organically, and the subtler arts of contemplation, consciousness, nonlocal awareness, and inquiry become genuinely accessible.
These are private sessions, uniquely adapted to where you are, for practitioners ready to go deeper. Available online and in-person in NYC.
What we can work with:
Mindfulness & Compassionate Presence: At the core is presence, returning to awareness itself, with compassion as the ground rather than a technique layered on top. This is where capacity stretches. Meditation is importantly not the point of meditation.
Contemplation & Spiritual Inquiry: Beyond mindfulness lies the art of contemplation: self-inquiry, disidentification, centering prayer, and practices that move toward direct knowing rather than knowledge about. This is where the deeper register of coherence becomes available.
Consciousness & Expanded States: Meditation can open profound states and experiences like nonlocal awareness, loving presence, subtle perception. Anchored in contemplative wisdom, compassionate presence, and the capacity to hold paradox, these become genuine thresholds. But without that ground, they become distraction at best, destabilizing at worst.
Breath & Nervous System: Breathing patterns often hold us in heightened states without our awareness. Retraining the breath settles the body-mind, with meditative clarity as a natural effect: functional breathing woven with embodied contemplative practice.
Meet your teacher
Susan Reis is a meditation teacher based in New York City, working at the intersection of contemplative wisdom, nervous system science, and depth & embodied psychology. Her approach is non-dogmatic, rooted in a heart-based direct experience rather than solely tradition, which is itself what genuine contemplation yields. Her approach is grounded in the understanding that presence is the coherent ground from which the system reorganizes itself. She holds certifications and experience in mindfulness meditation, primordial sound meditation, Compassion-Based Resilience Training (Nalanda Institute), Christian Contemplative practice, Nejang Healing Yoga, various forms of breathwork, and is completing an MS in Applied Neuroscience. She works with individuals online and in-person in NYC, both individuals and small groups.
Learn more about me.