For 20 years Aquinnah resident Dr. Elliott Dacher was an internist. He tended to patients battling severe illnesses such as heart disease, strokes and cancer, always applying what he’d learned from a career in western medicine.

Now, Mr. Dacher said, he hardly recognizes this old version of himself.

Dr. Dacher left his internal medicine practice nearly 30 years ago, turning instead to meditation and inner development as a more holistic effort to achieve wellness.

As a medical doctor he felt he just wasn’t doing enough, he explained.

“There’s an openness to listening and a consideration of all alternatives that people have in a vulnerable moment of transition like serious illness,” he said. “And in this teaching moment what was I doing? I was doing no teaching and letting the moment go by.”

For decades Mr. Dacher has been sharing his wealth of knowledge, hosting free meditation classes at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital to over 500 Islanders. The classes stopped during the pandemic but are starting up again on April 17 at the West Tisbury Library.

Mr. Dacher’s experience with meditating began in the 1970s, shortly after making his first visit to the Vineyard as a weekend emergency room doctor at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. He tried various meditation techniques, but it wasn’t until he spontaneously traveled to India with a colleague that he felt inspired to pursue the practice deeper.

He returned to India to study meditation for three or four months every year for the next 12 years.

“I thought, these people have what I’m looking for,” he said, reflecting on a visit to Dharamshala. “I needed this for myself and for my clients.”

Mr. Dacher relocated from Virginia to Aquinnah full-time in 1996 and now meditates every morning and teaches as much as he can, always beginning his classes with a lesson on the history and intention of meditation. He then conducts a guided meditation and ends the class answering questions. Classes are open to people of all ages, with a limit of 50 people per session.

The West Tisbury classes will meet for five Mondays, through May 22.

“Q and A is often the most useful because it allows people to talk about their difficulties and the problems they are having in meditation,” he said. “There’s always a solution for every problem and everybody’s problem is everybody else’s problem.”

Mr. Dacher also teaches private meditation lessons at his home, over Zoom or by phone, and has published several books on meditation and internal healing. His latest book, Meditation and Beyond, was published earlier this year and features 29 essays and 10 complementary audio meditation lessons meant to teach readers and listeners to “quiet the overactive mind.”

“When you meditate long enough it really weaves itself very subtly into your life,” he said. “Everything just sort of becomes quieter and easier.”

But meditation is not as simple as it looks, he added. Often the most challenging part is making the practice a habit. People have morning rituals like brushing their teeth, he said, but people rarely tend to their messy minds.

“It’s culturally trained in us to just go to work with [a messy mind] and meet people with it and spend time with loved ones in that way,” he said.

After a three-year break from teaching during the pandemic, he is ready to spend time with fellow Islanders nurturing their inner selves.

“One’s life really changes around it,” he said.

Meditation classes at the West Tisbury Library begin April 17 at 6 p.m. To register email wt_mail@clamsnet.org.