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FACE TO FACE | EASTERN HORIZON 35

The Legacy of Spiritual Masters

By Dr Miles Neale

Dr Miles Neale, PsyD, is a Buddhist psychotherapist Benny: Could you share with us how you first
in private practice, and founder of the Gradual Path, became interested in Buddhism, and why
an integrated ecosystem for Buddhist inspired online specifically Tibetan Buddhism?
courses, private mentoring, podcast, pilgrimages,
and service projects. He has taught psychology Miles: Apparently, I have a very strong past life connection
and meditation at prestigious university hospitals with Buddhism. In 1996 when I was 20 years old, I found
including Harvard, Columbia, and Cornell. Author a pamphlet in my college about Antioch Buddhist Studies
program offering a semester-long cultural immersion in
of Gradual Awakening (Sounds True, 2018) and co- Bodhgaya, India. While most of my peers were gearing up
editor of Advances in Contemplative Psychotherapy to travel to Florence to study architecture, or to London for
(Routledge, 2023), Miles is currently writing his economics, I was attracted to the idea of meditating with
next book Return with Elixir: Pilgrimage of the monks at 5 am and studying philosophy in a village in the
Soul Through Death and Rebirth (Inner Traditions, poorest state in India. It was not a typical choice.
2024). With more than twenty years integrating the
mind, science and meditation of Tibetan Buddhism I remember sitting around the dinner table with my
with clinical psychology, Miles is a forerunner in the parents two weeks before departure, scouring the
emerging fifth wave of psychotherapies integrating family atlas, but unable to locate Bodhgaya on the
trauma research, psychedelics, sound therapy, tantra, map! My parents thought I was mad, but supported
me anyway. Essentially, I was venturing into the
Jungian shadow-work, and sacred journeys into the unknown, being guided by something I was not fully
process of healing mind, body, and soul. aware of. At that time in my life, I was experiencing

much depression and anxiety. I never quite fit in to my
Realizing that Miles is a student of both Lama Zopa family or culture; their materialistic and consumerist
and Geshe Tenzin Zopa, Benny Liow asks him about urges never satisfied my soul. Until I reached India and
how one should relate to a spiritual master, especially the monastery, I never had an alternative way of life to
when the spiritual master has just passed away. consider, and so was adrift and searching for spiritual
sustenance. During the five months I lived in Bodhgaya,
studying and practicing intensively, very deep karmic
fruitions occurred, including what seemed like past
life impressions such as a feeling that I had been here
before, and that I had returned to a familiar place.