From Student to Teacher: Progetto Zenit and Vipassanā in Italy

One of the beautiful things about teaching meditation over a longer period of time is seeing where students take the practice themselves.

I first started working with Stefano, the founder of Progetto Zenit, several years ago. In fact, he was my first long-term one-to-one meditation student.

At the time I was still living in Thailand and spending an extended period practising and living at Wat Sopharam, a small Vipassanā monastery in Northern Thailand. Stefano and I began meeting online, and I supported him in discovering Vipassanā meditation and gradually developing a more consistent and serious practice.

Meeting for the first time in-person in Tuscany.

Much of our work was rooted in the Mahāsi Sayadaw tradition of Vipassanā, particularly the practice of mental noting. Over time, Stefano began sitting more, studying independently and attending his first intensive residential meditation retreats. I accompanied him through some of these periods, helping him prepare beforehand and integrate what had happened afterwards.

What I remember particularly well about Stefano as a student was his eagerness to learn. He didn’t only turn up for our sessions. He practised. He read. He studied things independently and came back with questions. He was genuinely curious about understanding meditation both intellectually and, much more importantly, through his own experience.

He was a good student then, and he still has that quality now.

From Vipassanā Student to Progetto Zenit

Since then, Stefano’s life has also changed considerably.

He moved away from a busy career in the corporate technology world and now lives in Northern Italy, in Tuscany. His work increasingly brings together meditation with another long-standing part of his life: nature. Alongside meditation, he guides people through nature hikes and wildlife photography.

More recently, he has begun sharing his meditation practice with others through Progetto Zenit, an Italian-language project dedicated to mindfulness and Vipassanā meditation.

What I appreciate is that he has not simply tried to reproduce what I taught him. His approach has continued developing through his own practice, study and work with other teachers. Progetto Zenit remains strongly grounded in Vipassanā and the Mahāsi noting tradition, while Stefano has developed a particular emphasis on practising noting aloud during one-to-one sessions so that feedback can happen while the student is actually meditating.

For Italian speakers interested in a structured and practical approach to Vipassanā meditation, I can heartfully recommend taking a look at his work.

Explore Stefano’s work at ⁠Progetto Zenit.

It is also simply nice for me to see this circle continuing: someone I once accompanied through his early years of practice is now accompanying other people through theirs.

The Value of One-to-One Meditation Guidance

Stefano’s journey also reminds me why I continue to value one-to-one meditation work so much.

Meditation is often presented as something we should be able to figure out alone. We read a book, listen to a guided meditation, go on retreat and then continue practising by ourselves.

There is enormous value in that independence. Ultimately, nobody can practise for us.

But there are also periods when having someone accompany the practice can make a significant difference.

Questions arise that are difficult to answer from a book: Am I applying too much effort? Am I actually observing experience or subtly thinking about it? Should I stay with this technique or change direction? Is something that arose on retreat useful to investigate, or am I becoming fascinated by an unusual experience? How do I bring what I discovered in meditation back into ordinary life?

This was a large part of my work with Stefano, particularly around his early intensive retreats. A retreat can open up territory that is difficult to understand from inside the experience itself. Having an ongoing relationship with a teacher or mentor gives us somewhere to bring these experiences before returning to practice.

This is also why I continue offering one-to-one meditation mentorship through Vipassana at Home.

My own approach has broadened considerably over the years. It remains grounded in Vipassanā and my training in the Goenka and Mahāsi traditions, including my time practising at ⁠Wat Sopharam in Thailand. But depending on the person, our work may also explore embodiment, somatic awareness, open awareness and non-dual approaches to practice.

The purpose is not to make somebody dependent on a teacher. Quite the opposite. It is to help develop the sensitivity, understanding and confidence to increasingly navigate one’s own practice.

If you are already practising consistently and would like individual support in deepening your meditation, you can read more about ⁠one-to-one meditation mentorship with me here.

And if you are Italian-speaking and looking for an Italian perspective on Vipassanā and mindfulness practice, have a look at ⁠Progetto Zenit.

I’m very happy to see where Stefano has taken the practice, and where he takes it next.