Walking into the cozy, warm building of the Wilson Center, with windows from the ground up, you are met with Dylan Taplin. His warm presence and infectious laughter fill the house. Taplin has been running a meditation group at the Wilson Center on campus for around a year and has been working as a program coordinator.
A graduate of the University of Maine with a degree in biology and a minor in psychology, Taplin has a long history with mediation and first explored the practice when he was around 11 years old as an outlet for some of his anger towards his basketball league.
“I [meditated] every night for about 20 minutes, and sort of viewed it as a chore, and did that for about four to five years,” Taplin stated. “I viewed it as kind of an internal mental housekeeping, you know, like sort of tidying up my mind.”
Things changed for Taplin’s relationship with meditating when he was in a car accident in April of 2022. On his way home from Maine Day, his car was hit by a garbage truck, which left him with a traumatic brain injury. He couldn’t do much but rest, and during this time he explored the practice of meditation and Buddhist tradition further.
“For a long time after the crash, a lot of what I was doing was sitting and breathing and being with breath, so it was it’s kind of own meditation in a sort of way,” Taplin said.
After his crash, Taplin got the opportunity to go to a Hawaiian commune that further elevated his journey with meditation and the mind. “I met a lot of cool people there and learned a lot about Buddhism, but also about Hinduism and other religions. [I] also went to another place in Hawaii for a month and did really, really intense meditation there,” Taplin explained.
With his history in the art of meditation, Taplin decided to create a mediation group to give others the chance to also explore the practice.
“At the start of every semester, I do an intro to mediation to get people interested and to give them an idea of what it is,” he stated. The group meets every week and Taplin brings in different speakers to talk about different topics regarding meditation and Buddhist ideas.
In addition to this, he gives tips on how and where to start when it comes to meditation.
“There’s a free app that you can get called Audio Dharma, that has a ton of Buddhist philosophy on it and a lot of guided meditation,” said Taplin. “If you’re interested in meditation, I would start finding resources for guided meditation and just sit down, and try not to think about it too hard.”
If you’re interested in exploring more about the mind and Buddhism, as well as the practice of meditation, visit the Wilson Center on Wednesdays from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. and learn from Taplin and other speakers mindful in the practice.
