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Adi Bemak has been a Buddhist practitioner for more than four decades, beginning when she was introduced to Buddhism in Myanmur (then Burma) in 1976. After years of retreat at IMS, she completed the Community Dharma Leaders Program at Spirit Rock in 2003, the same year she joined the teachers’ council at IWM. Adi also served for four years as a mentor on the faculty of the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program (MMTCP), an international training designed and overseen by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach.
For more than 20 years she taught Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), including several years on the faculty of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Healthcare, and Society at UMass Medical School. In addition, Adi taught MBSR for a decade with Valley Mindfulness Center, and for over a decade was Co-Buddhist Advisor (along with Peggy Gillespie) at Mt. Holyoke College. Adi maintains a mindfulness-based psychotherapy practice in Amherst, and also relishes time with her family and friends. |
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Devin Berry has been meditating for over 20 years. His practice is primarily informed by the classical teachings of early Buddhism and the Insight Meditation tradition. He has undertaken many periods of silent long-term retreat practice. Devin’s training includes Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction teacher training, the East Bay Meditation Center Commit to Dharma Program, Spirit Rock’s Dedicated Practitioners Program, and Insight Meditation Society’s four-year Residential Retreat Teachers Program. Devin also co-founded both the Teen Sangha and Men of Color Deep Refuge Group at East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland. He has recently relocated to Western Massachusetts and teaches nationally. Devin is an Insight Meditation Society Core Guiding Teacher. He is passionate about the power of witnessing and storytelling as a liberation tool. He is deeply committed to the personal and collective liberation of marginalized communities knowing that through the integration of reflection and insight, clarity and wisdom give rise to wise action. Devin's website is devinberry.org.
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Nick Boutros has been a Buddhist practitioner for over 20 years, and has practiced in both Vipassana traditions and the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. He received his Master's from Naropa University in Contemplative Psychotherapy in 2006 and is currently a psychotherapist in Greenfield, where he specializes in therapy with LGBTQ+ folk, clinical hypnosis, and in the integration of spirituality and meditation in mental health.
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Rebecca Bradshaw, Guiding Teacher Emeritus of the Insight Meditation Society, has been practicing Vipassana meditation since 1983 in the United States and Myanmar and teaching since 1993. She completed her dharma teacher training at Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, where she is part of the three-month retreat teacher team and leads retreats for young adults. Rebecca teaches a body centered approach to meditation, infused with large doses of loving kindness and intimate connection to the natural world. She has a master's degree in Counseling Psychology and is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC). Her book, Down to Earth Dharma: Insight Meditation to Awaken the Heart will be released in November 2024. For more information and her schedule, please see her webpage at www.rebeccabradshaw.org.
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Candace Cassin has been practicing Insight Meditation since 1983, and teaching at IWM since 2008. Her personal practice and teaching approach are rooted in the classical teachings, and she is especially interested in the integration of insight, wisdom, and compassion in everyday life, both on the personal and social levels. In her former incarnations she worked in the disability field and as a hospice chaplain.
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Jean Esther, MSW began formal meditation training in 1975. She has been training in the Theravadan Buddhist tradition since 1982 with senior Western teachers as well as Burmese and Western Monastics. Since 2008, she has undertaken extensive teacher training in both Vipassana practice and non-dual awareness. Jean's dharma teaching is informed by over 42 years of practice as a psychotherapist integrating spiritual inquiry and somatic awareness with psychological understanding. For over 20 years, she trained with renowned Jungian analyst Marion Woodman, exploring the awakening of consciousness through the body, psyche and the arts. The wellspring and root of her work are the Buddha's teachings on love and wisdom. Jean serves on the Guiding Teacher's Council at Insight Western Mass and is a Guiding Teacher of True North Insight in Ontario Canada. She also teaches at Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA, and across the US and Canada. In addition, she has a private psychotherapy practice in Northampton, MA.
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Peggy Gillespie was the original Assistant Director under Jon Kabat-Zinn, of the UMass Medical Center's Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program in Worcester. She was trained as a Community Dharma Leader at Spirit Rock with Tara Brach and James Baraz. Peggy is the co-Buddhist Advisor at Mt. Holyoke College (along with Adi Bemak). She was on staff at IMS in Barre, MA during its second year in 1978. She is on the core team of the remarkable IMS summer teen retreat and has been doing this for over 15 years. She is the co-founder and director of the national non-profit organization, Family Diversity Projects, and has been the interviewer/editor for all 8 of their traveling photo-text exhibits and 4 published books including the recently released book and exhibit: AUTHENTIC SELVES: Celebrating Trans and Nonbinary People and their Families (2023 Skinner House Books). Visit www.familydiversityprojects.org for more information.
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Michael Grady began practicing Insight Meditation with Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg in 1974 when they first returned from Asia. He is a Senior teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA and was a Guiding teacher at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center for many years. Michael moved to Western Mass several years ago and is currently on the Guiding Teacher Council of Insight Western Mass (IWM). He is profoundly grateful for the teachings of the Buddha and for the many teachers and Sangha members who have shared with him their many life challenges and their liberating wisdom and compassion as we journey together on this path of awakening and freedom.
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Mark Hart, who is currently on hiatus from IWM, has practiced Insight Meditation since 1981, studying primarily at Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA. Since 2000 he has also studied with teachers of non-dual awareness, including Adyashanti and Jeannie Zandi, and has incorporated that into his teaching. He has taught Insight Meditation since 1987 and is founder and guiding teacher of the Bodhisãra Dharma Community in the Amherst area. He holds a Masters of Counseling degree and Ph.D. in theology, has a practice of psychotherapy in Amherst, and is adjunct religious advisor to Buddhist students at Amherst College. To learn more about Mark's Teaching Schedule, visit Bodhisara Dharma Community.
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Manny Mansbach has been practicing Insight Meditation since 1980. He is a graduate of Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Community Dharma Leader Program, and has decades of experience as a mindfulness-based psychotherapist working with couples, a teacher of therapists in training, and a social activist. Manny is committed to helping people remember and express their basic goodness, and to gain confidence in the beauty and power of the Buddha’s teachings of profound understanding and boundless kindness. He is passionate about integrating the wise speech teachings of the Buddha with western-based practices of skillful communication. For Manny's website visit mannymansbach.com.
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Bernadine Mellis believes in the possibility of sangha as a true refuge for all who seek it, and works - through Dhamma-based mediation, facilitation, and teaching - to help manifest that reality. She serves as a teacher and staff member at Insight Western Mass (IWM), where she has been generously nurtured and mentored over many years by members of the Teachers Council, including Jean Esther and Tara Mulay, among others. At IWM, she co-facilitates White & Awakening in the Dharma, the Queer & Trans Affinity Sangha, and Saturday Sangha (for families and everyone), among other offerings. She completed her training as a Community Dharma Leader in 2022 through True North Insight, with deepest gratitude to the beautiful cohort and teaching team: Daryl Lynn Ross, Dawn Mauricio, Jozen Tamori Gibson, and Jill Davey. Bernadine is currently a participant in Sacred Mountain Sangha’s Dharmapala program and a student in Harvard Divinity School’s Buddhist Ministry Initiative, where she studies with Charles Hallisey.
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Tara Mulay's practice and teachings stem from the lineage of Mahasi Sayadaw. She has been authorized to teach by Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts and has gratefully drawn influence from many teachers within and outside of the Mahasi lineage, including Howard Cohn, Kamala Masters, Gil Fronsdal, Joseph Goldstein, Sayadaw U Tejaniya, and Ayya Anandabodhi. Tara practiced criminal defense law in California for over 20 years. She was a leader of Mission Dharma in San Francisco, and in 2016 she co-founded the San Francisco People of Color Insight Sangha. She remained a core teacher with the group until the spring of 2019, when she relocated to Western Massachusetts. She then served as Interim Guiding Teacher of Insight Western Massachusetts from April 2020-April 2021. Tara felt initially drawn to dharma practice upon encountering the Buddha's teachings rejecting social caste as a measure of worth and of capacity for awakening. She believes classical Buddhist practices, designed to cultivate compassion, non-greed, non-hatred, and non-delusion, are uniquely potent vehicles for empowering people in marginalized communities and effecting social change. For more information, please visit Tara's website taramulay.com.
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Guest Teachers and Presenters
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Ayya Anandabodhi first encountered the Buddha's teachings in her early teens, igniting a deep interest in the Buddha's Path of Awakening. She lived and trained as a nun in the Forest Tradition at Amaravati and Chithurst monasteries in England from 1992 until 2009, when she moved to the US to help establish Aloka Vihara Forest Monastery, a training monastery for women. Her practice and teaching are guided by early Buddhist scriptures and through nature's pure and immediate Dhamma. In 2011, she took full Bhikkhuni Ordination, joining the growing number of women who are reclaiming this path in the Theravada tradition. She currently resides at Aloka Vihara, near Placerville, CA.
Visit www.alokavihara.org for more information. |
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Ayyā Dhammadīpā, the founder of Dassanāya Buddhist Community, has been practicing Buddhism since 1987. She is a fully ordained bhikkhuni in the Theravāda tradition, and a Dharma Transmitted Teacher in the Suzuki Roshi lineage of Soto Zen. In addition to English, Ayyā teaches in Spanish, an expression of her Latin heritage. She is an author whose work has appeared in the Buddhist publications "Lion's Roar" and the "Buddhadharma" magazine. Ayyā is the mother of a lovely adult daughter, and enjoys sewing and watercolor painting.
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James Baraz has taught mindfulness meditation since 1978 and is co-founder of the world-renowned Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. He is co-author of two books Awakening Joy: 10 Steps to a Happier Life and Awakening Joy for Kids. James has taught the Awakening Joy course to over 24,000 people from 30 countries since 2003, as well as retreats and workshops in the US and internationally. Website: awakeningjoy.info
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Kristina Baré is an insight meditation teacher, therapist and Somatic Experiencing practitioner. She has trained primarily in the Burmese lineages of Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw and Ven. Pa Auk Sayadaw. She enjoys supporting students in deepening samadhi, loving-kindness and insight. Opening the door to an expansion of the heart and to liberating wisdom. In support of the Buddha’s teachings, she also draws on knowledge from western psychology and Somatic Experiencing. She invites a kind, patient, and embodied approach as a base for samadhi, loving-kindness, insight meditation practices.
For more information, visit: www.kristinabare.com. |
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Brent Beresford’s (they/them) greatest teachers are their children, proving how unreasonable Brent’s expectations are, and encouraging a constant softening and practice of deep relationship. Their main work has been in engaging the power of relationality, accompanying individuals and groups since 2002 as an occupational therapist and psychotherapist. They have endeavoured to transmit teachings of the Dhamma in various forms since 2013, through mindfulness-based approaches and the practice of Insight Dialogue. Since their first retreat in 2002, the practice has carried them through life. A person of mixed racial heritage, they also identify as gender nonconforming.
Brent is inspired to explore the living Dhamma with folks. Working to break down the rigidity often found in colonized and patriarchal values, as well as integrating the ways we understand trauma to impact the nervous system, both individual and collective. Their work as a psychologist, integrating Somatic Experiencing at the forefront, greatly influences these aspirations. Brent has been recognized as an Insight Dialogue teacher, and is a current student of Spirit Rock’s 7th community dharma leader program |
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Nakawe Cuebas Berrios - For over 20 years nakawe has and continues to be a practitioner in the Buddha Dharma. Her first Buddhist teacher was Goenka. Graduate of the Spirit Rock Dedicated Practitioners Program, Community Dharma Leaders Program and the IMS Teacher Trainer Program. At present she teaches retreats and is a community Insight Meditation teacher with New York Insight and other centers.
Working as a Midwife for 40 years. Her ancestral home is Puerto Rico, blending the Spanish, African and Taino Indian roots that flow from her ancestors, that give her guidance and strength. She identifies as Nuyorican blending her Puerto Rican roots with her New York roots. Nakawe believes we all have the potential to live a life of wisdom and compassion. These are the teachings of liberation, that she wants to share. |
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Harrison Blum began meditating in 1999 and has primarily practiced in the Insight Meditation tradition. He has worked as a chaplain in oncology, medical intensive care, psychiatric inpatient, and college settings, and in October 2018 became director of religious and spiritual life at Amherst College. Harrison has master’s degrees in divinity and education, and is a graduate of Spirit Rock’s 4th Community Dharma Leader program. He also loves to dance, and is the editor of Dancing with Dharma: Essays on Movement and Dance in Western Buddhism.
For more about Harrison and his work please visit movingdharma.org. |
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Melina Bondy Hello! I started meditating in 2003 after I found “Call Me By My True Names,” a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh, on the internet. I soon attended my first retreats in Asia and North America and never looked back. I first studied with Insight teachers Molly Swan and Norman Feldman at home in Canada then in 2012 I ordained with the Vietnamese Zen Master and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh at Plum Village, France. I spent six challenging and insight-filled years inside the monasteries and another 3+ years outside of the monasteries sharing mindfulness practices with communities across Canada and the US, taking time for longterm silent retreats in the Insight tradition, and training in anti-racism. I’ve now left the robes behind but my dedication to meditation and mindfulness for all remains the same. In the spring of 2021 I knew it was time to return to lay life and share what I've learned with a broader community. I'm also part of the True North Insight Community Meditation Mentorship Program.
I am a queer, white settler in Canada, a cancer survivor and a writer. It is my honour and my passion to support people in practical and creative ways to develop mindfulness, compassion, and joy in daily life. You can find out more about me and my work at: www.melinabondy.com |
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Booker brings her heart and wisdom to the intersection of Dharma, Embodied Wisdom, and Liberation. She shares her expertise nationally on expanding our vision around culturally responsive teaching, and changing the paradigm of self and community care.
Outside of her formal trainings, she shared practice with NYC’s most vulnerable populations for over decade. Here is where she learned how to take her practice off the cushion and into everyday life. Booker is a co-author of Best Practices for Yoga in a Criminal Justice Setting, a contributor to Georgetown Law's Center on Poverty and Inequality's report: Gender & Trauma—Somatic Interventions for Girls in Juvenile Justice, and contributed to Sharon Salzberg's book ‘Happiness at Work’. She is a co-founder of the Yoga Service Council at Omega Institute and the Meditation Working Group of Occupy Wall Street. In 2020 she was invited in as Sojourner Truth Leadership Fellow through Auburn Seminary, graduated from Spirit Rock’s 4 year Retreat Teacher Training, and was voted by her peers as one of the 12 Powerful Women in the Mindfulness Movement. |
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Ajahn Brahm is the popular Buddhist teacher to a growing international audience of people keen to learn meditation and develop a deeper spiritual understanding. He is also the founding father of an emergent Australian forest tradition of Buddhist monasticism focused on being true to the original roots of the Buddha's Teaching of Dhamma and Vinaya.
Ajahn Brahm was born in London in 1951 and earned a degree in theoretical physics from Cambridge University. He became a monk in 1974 in the Forest Tradition of north-east Thailand under the highly esteemed meditation master Ajahn Chah. Ajahn Brahm is today a revered spiritual teacher and guide, and is abbot of the largest Buddhist monastery in the Southern Hemisphere. He is the author of Opening the Door Of Your Heart (a.k.a. Who Ordered this Truckload of Dung?), Mindfulness Bliss and Beyond, The Art of Disappearing and Don’t Worry Be Grumpy (a.k.a. Good? Bad? Who knows?). His public teachings regularly attract thousands to his inventive and insightful talks, which are heard by millions of people online. |
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Carla Brennan , M.Ed., is an Insight Meditation teacher from Santa Cruz, CA. She has trained in the Zen, Insight Meditation and Tibetan Buddhist traditions since 1975. Carla is the Guiding Teacher for Bloom of the Present Insight Meditation (bloomofthepresent.org). As part of her Dharma teaching, Carla encourages her students to practice in wild nature to help discover their true nature. Carla also taught Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for 18 years and is an artist, nature photographer and former psychotherapist.
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Victoria Cary has been practicing Insight Meditation and studying the Dharma since 2006. She is Native of the San Francisco Bay Area, and left her workplace of 20 years in 2017 to deepen into her practice. In 2017 She completed the Spirit Rock's Community Dharma Leader program, and went on to become a fully empowered Dharma Teacher. In 2016 she co-founded the San Francisco People of Color Insight Sangha and continues as one of the core teachers. Victoria is particularly interested in the integration of the Mindfulness in everyday life.
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Andrea Castillo has practiced insight meditation since 1998, under the guidance of Gil Fronsdal and Andrea Fella. Since 2009, she has taught a weekly Dharma in Spanish group at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA.
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Shaila Catherine is the founder of Bodhi Courses, an online Dhamma classroom, and Insight Meditation South Bay, a center for mindfulness, compassion, and wisdom in Silicon Valley, California.
Shaila began meditating in 1980, and has accumulated more than nine years of silent retreat experience. She has practiced with Western and Asian teachers, and devoted several years to studying with masters in India, Nepal, and Thailand. Shaila completed a one-year intensive meditation retreat with the focus on concentration and jhana using the breath as the primary object, and has dedicated seven retreat months to developing Brahma Viharas. From 2006-2014 Shaila trained in both samadhi and vipassana under the direction of Venerable Pa-Auk Sayadaw of Myanmar. Shaila began teaching in 1996 at the invitation of Christopher Titmuss. She leads retreats worldwide, and offers online courses. Her teachings reflect her love of the Discourses of the Buddha, deep commitment to retreat practice, confidence in the liberating goal, appreciation of meditative techniques, and a pervasive curiosity about the functioning of mind. Shaila Catherine's website: shailacatherine.com. |
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Yenkuei Chuang, Ph.D., is a mindfulness-based licensed psychologist with over twenty years of experience in meditation, yoga, and cognitive behavioral therapy. Committed to the practices of awareness, wisdom, and love, she offers a breadth of services to individuals and groups. She helps people transform their suffering across all life transitions and specifically with issues at work, relationships, and sexuality. She is keenly aware of culture, gender, race, class, and other social differences that condition our perceptions and identities. When not working, she loves being a mother to her four children, writing, cooking, and dancing.
Dr. Chuang received her M.Ed. in Human Development from Harvard University and Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Stanford University. Also a Fulbright Fellow, she wrote her dissertation on Bicultural Competence. Previously she worked as a clinical psychologist at Harvard University Health Services, a diversity consultant at Harvard Pilgrim Foundation, and mindfulness instructor at Downunder School of Yoga. She is grateful to Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and Insight Meditation teachers for their guidance and support. |
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Howard Cohn has led the Mission Dharma sitting group in San Francisco for over 30 years. He has practiced meditation since 1972, has led vipassana retreats since 1985, and is a senior teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Howie is known by his students for his kindheartedness and warm sense of humor.
Howie has studied with many Asian and western teachers of several traditions, including Theravada, Zen, Dzogchen and Advaita Vedanta, and has been strongly influenced by contact with the Indian master H.W.L. Poonja. He has done postgraduate work in East/West Psychology and has a private counseling practice. |
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Jeanne Corrigal is the guiding teacher for the Saskatoon Insight Meditation Community, and a graduate of the 2017-2021 IMS teacher training program. She deeply appreciates metta and nature based practices. She has been practicing since 1999, and is a graduate of Spirit Rock’s Dedicated Practitioner and Community Dharma Leader Programs. Jeanne is certified with Indigenous Focusing Oriented Trauma Therapy (IFOT), is a certified MBSR teacher, and she has trained with Mindful Schools and Somatic Experiencing. She is Métis, and one of her first teachers in loving presence was Cree Elder Jim Settee.
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Chris Crotty, M.A., BCCC, BCPC, is a Buddhist teacher, pastoral counselor, and adjunct professor in wellness and alternative medicine.
Practicing meditation since 1998, he has taken retreats with Burmese monastics Sayadaw U Indaka and Sayadaw U Tejaniya, scholar-practitioner Bhikkhu Analayo, western monastics of the Zen and Thai Forest tradition, and senior western Vipassana teachers. Chris was authorized to teach Buddhadharma in 2015 by senior teachers in the west of Insight (vipassana) tradition, and in 2016 was encouraged to teach vipassana and metta by Sayadaw U Indaka (Chanmyay Myaing, Myanmar). Chris is co-spiritual director and guiding teacher of The Center for Mindfulness & Insight Meditation, Wenham, MA. He is also an active member of the Center for Spiritual Care & Pastoral Formation (CSCPF), through which he participates in ongoing training in Buddhist Chaplaincy and Pastoral Care. Chris’s teaching combines Theravada Buddhism’s emphasis on insight and ethics with the Mahayana ideal of compassionate action and synthesis of practice and study. He is particularly interested in exploring the roles of transparency and vulnerability in effectively teaching the dharma and how principles of integrity and kindness form the basis of caring communities. He is also influenced by ecopsychology, attachment theory, and contemplative, pastoral, and palliative approaches to sickness, aging, and end-of-life care. |
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Roxanne Dault teaches meditation in Canada, USA and in Europe. She has been dedicated to this path for almost two decades, sitting long retreats both in Asia and in the West. A Guiding Teacher at True North Insight and a graduate of the 2017-2021 IMS teacher training program, Roxanne teaches in a variety of settings including in incarcerated and other marginalized populations. Her teachings take root mainly from the lineage of Mahasi Sayadaw. She is trained in Somatic Experiencing®, a body-mind approach aimed at relieving the symptoms of trauma and stress. She speaks French, English and is learning her ancestors’ language, Anishinaabemowin.
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bruni dávila has practiced Insight meditation since 1995. She is a graduate from the IMC Local Dharma Leaders and the Dharma 2017-2021 IMS Teacher Training Program. bruni has been guided and supported by various wonderful teachers/sanghas, and her ancestors of Puerto Rican heritage. Her practice is grounded in the teachings of Mahasi Sayadaw and Sayadaw U Tejaniya. She is drawn to and inspired by long retreat practice and Dharma in daily life. Their fruits of peace, contentment and ease can be cultivated and experienced in our lives through the Buddhist teachings. bruni continues her practice in the Theravada tradition, under the guidance of Gil Fronsdal and Andrea Fella.
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Chas DiCapua has been practicing Buddhist meditation for almost 30 years. He has trained with Burmese meditation masters, western monastics of the Thai Forest tradition and senior western vipassana teachers. He has spent over two years in silent, intensive retreat.
Chas has served as IMS’s Resident Teacher at IMS since 2003. Chas is a graduate of the four year joint Insight Meditation Society / Spirit Rock Teacher Training Program. He teaches retreats at IMS and at various centers and sanghas throughout the country. As a way to address the wide spread suffering that is endemic in many partnered relationships, Chas explores how the dharma can be practiced in relationship, including how the masculine and feminine energies manifest in relationship, in spiritual practice, and in the world. For information about Chas’s mini-retreats and Monday night classes at IMS, visit their Local Meditation Class page. |
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JD Doyle (they/them) served as a Core Teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center for 5 years and also as the Guiding Teacher at Insight Santa Cruz. They graduated from Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Teacher Training, the Community Dharma Leader training, and the Dedicated Practitioner Program. They teach at sanghas across the US and in Canada. JD began studying and practicing Buddhism in 1995, at Insight Meditation Society and at Spirit Rock and continued with extensive retreat practice in Thailand and Burma in the Theravadan lineage. For over twenty-three years, they worked as a public-school teacher. JD holds a BS in Environmental Studies from Cornell University, a bilingual multicultural teaching certificate from UC Santa Cruz, and a Masters in Language and Literacy and Sociocultural Studies from the University of New Mexico. They are committed to celebrating the diversity of our human sangha, addressing the impact of racism on our communities, expanding concepts of gender, and living in ways that honor the sacredness of the Earth. For more info: www.heartmindteaching.com.
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Anushka Fernandopulle has trained in Buddhist meditation for over 30 years, primarily Vipassana or Insight Meditation (the source of secular Mindfulness). After studying Buddhism at Harvard, she spent four years in full-time meditation training in the US, India and Sri Lanka. She was invited to teach Dharma in 1998 and later went through a four year meditation teacher training program with Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg and other leading Western Buddhist meditation teachers. She joined the Teacher’s Council at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in 2011. Her work has been featured in publications like Tricycle, Lion’s Roar, Turning Wheel, Inquiring Mind, as well as on her blog on the Huffington Post about dharma and politics.
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Anne Fine has practiced Buddhism in the Vipassana tradition for about 25 years. In 2019, she completed a 9-month course in contemplative care at the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. As part of that program, Anne was an intern in spiritual care at Cooley Dickinson Hospital, where she continues to be a volunteer in this capacity. Professionally, Anne was a nurse midwife for 30 years and now works as a family nurse practitioner at a community health center. At present, she is also a caregiver for her in-laws with whom she lives, and her mother.
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Jozen Tamori Gibson (they, them) began formal meditation practice in 2004 through Sotō Zen while living in Japan joined by a Theravada practice in 2010. Jozen is a participant in the 2017-2021 Insight Meditation Society (IMS) Dharma Teacher Training program and serves on the New York Insight Meditation Center’s teacher council. With certifications and embodiment studies in Yoga, Qigong, Indigenous Focusing Oriented Therapy (IFOT) and Complex Trauma, Jozen lives to provide and nourish contemplative mind-heart-body alignment practices and spaces rooted in wellness, anti-oppression and interdependent liberation for all beings. Jozen honors the wisdom and compassion of all teachers, highlighting their mother, Akimi, and dharma root teacher, Pamela Weiss.
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Joseph Goldstein has been leading insight and lovingkindness meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. He is a cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, where he is one of the organization’s guiding teachers. In 1989, together with several other teachers and students of insight meditation, he helped establish the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.
Joseph first became interested in Buddhism as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand in 1965. Since 1967 he has studied and practiced different forms of Buddhist meditation under eminent teachers from India, Burma and Tibet. He is the author of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening, A Heart Full of Peace, One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism, Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom, The Experience of Insight, and co-author of Seeking the Heart of Wisdom and Insight Meditation: A Correspondence Course. |
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Shelly Graf has been practicing in the Insight Meditation tradition and has called Common Ground their spiritual home since 2003. They are a graduate of Insight Meditation Society’s four-year teacher training program and lead residential retreats at IMS and other retreat centers nationally. Shelly currently serves alongside Mark Nunberg as one of Common Ground’s Guiding Teachers. Shelly has an interest in integrating the teachings of the Buddha as deeply as possible into the fabric of our lives and as such, they have a special interest in waking up to whiteness as part of this total and fully integrated path of awakening. Whatever Shelly’s role may be, they will always be a grateful student of Buddhist Practice first.
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nico hase lived in a monastery for six years before earning a PhD in counseling psychology and becoming an Insight Meditation teacher full time. He currently mentors mindfulness teachers, teaches online and in-person retreats, and speaks with students in one-on-one sessions. He and his beloved life partner devon are the authors of How Not to Be a Hot Mess: A Survival Guide for Modern Life. Find out more at www.devonandnicohase.com
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devon hase loves long retreats and has completed several years of cumulative silent practice in the Insight and Vajrayana traditions. Since discovering meditation in 2000, she has put dharma and community at the center of her life: she spent a decade bringing mindfulness to high school and college classrooms and now teaches at the Insight Meditation Society, Spirit Rock, and other centers. She enjoys supporting practitioners with personal mentoring, and her friendly, conversational approach centers relational practice and the natural world. Along with her life partner nico, devon co-authored How Not to Be a Hot Mess: A Buddhist Survival Guide for Modern Life. She now spends a good part of the time in wilderness retreat in Oregon, Massachusetts, and elsewhere. For more, visit devonandnicohase.com.
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Deborah Ratner Helzer first took up Buddhist meditation 30 years ago to reduce stress while working on her engineering degree. She has been teaching at IMS since 2004, as well as with theInsight Meditation Community of Washington, DC where she lives. She has studied and practiced with both western and asian teachers, including a year as a nun with the late Sayadaw U Pandita. Her teaching style reflects the influence of the 20th century Burmese master Mahasi Sayadaw and his emphasis on clear, non-judgmental awareness. Since becoming a mother, she has also been actively exploring practice within family life. For more info, visit yogideb.com.
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Born in Boston in 1967, Ajahn Jayanto grew up in Newton, Mass. and attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison, during which time a period of world travel kindled a great interest in the spiritual life. A meditation class at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center led him to live for a while at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, where he made plans to join the monastic community of Ajahn Sumedho as a postulant at Amaravati Monastery in England in 1989. Taking bhikkhu (monk) ordination at the related Cittaviveka Monastery in 1991, he trained there and at Aruna Ratanagiri Monastery until 1997, at which point he embarked on a period of practice in Thailand and other Asian Buddhist countries. He returned to the UK in 2006, where he lived at Amaravati until moving to Temple in 2014. Since 2009 Ajahn Jayanto has helped to lead the efforts to establish a branch monastery in New England, and he now serves as co-abbot of Temple Forest Monastery.
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Kate Johnson is a meditation teacher, facilitator, writer and mother. Kate has practiced Theravada Buddhism in the Western Insight lineage since her early 20’s, has participated in many multi-month retreats and multi-year teacher trainings, and was authorized in 2020 through Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s four-year retreat teacher training, under the leadership of Gina Sharpe, Larry Yang and Lila Kate Wheeler. Kate began facilitating organizational training and retreats after co-founding the Meditation Working Group at Occupy Wall Street in 2011. She later joined the faculty of MIT’s Presencing Institute, and went on to consult with leaders and organizations committed to equity, sustainability, and the practice of wise relationship, using awareness-based and embodied practices to support communication, strategy, and relational culture. Currently, Kate is enjoying serving engaged Buddhists and activists as the Co-Director of Programs and Partnerships at Buddhist Peace Fellowship. She holds a BFA in Modern Dance from the Alvin Ailey School/Fordham University and MA in Performance Studies from NYU. She is the author of the book Radical Friendship: Seven Ways to Love Yourself and Find Your People in an Unjust World. In her off hours, she can be found exploring Philly with her kids, sipping tea with friends, and looking for all manner of good trouble. Website: https://www.katejohnson.com/
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Cara Lai has spent most of her life in pursuit of meaning and happiness, which landed her on a cushion for much of her adult life. Throughout many mind-body adventures including many long-term retreats, she has explored the concentrated mind, chronic illness, the value of pleasure, the power of maternal energy, and connection to the earth. In the past, Cara has worked as an artist, wilderness guide, social worker and psychotherapist. Now she finds herself intently focused on the dharma path, practicing both on and off the cushion in unconventional ways, and using intuition as her guide. She tries her best to teach from the most authentic and vulnerable place she can muster, and is still learning about the contentment of simply existing.
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Brian Lesage has practiced Buddhist meditation since 1988 and has taught meditation since 2000. He has studied in the Zen, Theravada, and Tibetan schools of Buddhism. He was ordained in the Rinzai Zen tradition in 1996. His training in Vipassana Meditation includes doing extended meditation retreats in Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, and India as well as numerous retreats in the U.S. He leads retreats and teaches meditation courses nationwide.
Brian also has a private practice in Somatic Experiencing, which is a naturalistic approach to healing trauma. Brian completed the SRMC/IMS/IRC 4-year teacher training in 2016. For more information, visit www.liberatingawareness.com. |
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Rachel Lewis is a participant in the 2017-2021 IMS Teacher Training Program, as well as a graduate of Spirit Rock’s Dedicated Practitioners Program and Community Dharma Leaders training. She began practicing meditation while completing her physics PhD at Yale. She has spent over 500 nights on silent retreat since 2003, including two three-month retreats. She developed a songbook of Buddhist music including her own choral arrangements of traditional chants. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Insight World Aid. She has taught classes and retreats in British Columbia since 2010, including at a prison and in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side.
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Rhonda V. Magee is a Professor of Law at the University of San Francisco and a leading mindfulness teacher and practice innovator with a focus on applying mindfulness to the hardest challenges of our times. She is an internationally-recognized teacher, guide and mentor, focused on integrating mindfulness into higher education, law and social change work. A prolific author, she draws on law and legal history to weave storytelling, poetry, analysis and practices into inspiration for changing how we think, act and live better together in a rapidly changing world.
For more than 20+ years, Professor Magee has studied mindfulness, its underlying origins in Buddhism, and its potential benefits and applications in the world. As both a law professor and a mindfulness teacher, Magee has been exploring the integration of mindfulness into teaching and learning, and social engagement, including in support of personal and collective healing, activism, leadership. She has written extensively on how mindfulness and other contemplative practices support engagement in the world in the face of the multiple interlocking challenges of our times, including climate distress, migration, political polarization, migration, war and their effects on us all. Along the way, she’s become a sought-after Keynote speaker and thought-leader, inspiring others to explore the integration of socially-engaged mindfulness in research and in applications inside schools, workplaces, communities and beyond. rhondavmagee.com |
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John Makransky, PhD, is Associate Professor of Buddhism and Comparative Theology at Boston College, senior advisor for Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche’s Centre of Buddhist Studies in Nepal and developer of the Sustainable Compassion Training model for accessing innate capacities of compassion and awareness. John's academic writings have focused on connections between practices of wisdom, compassion and devotion in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, on adapting Buddhist practices for contemporary minds, and on interfaith learning.
In 2000, John was ordained as a Lama, a meditation teacher of innate compassion and wisdom, within the Nyingma Dzogchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. As a meditation teacher, John is known for guiding participants in their discovery of underlying powers of love and wisdom. For the past twelve years, John has taught meditations of innate compassion and wisdom, adapted from Tibetan Buddhism, for modern Buddhists, those in other spiritual traditions, and for people in caring roles and professions. |
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Florence Meleo-Meyer is an Insight Dialogue Teacher. She teaches courses and retreats in Interpersonal Mindfulness, which is based on Insight Dialogue.
Florence has taught meditation for over 30 years. She is certified as a Siddha Yoga meditation teacher as well as a Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction teacher. She has studied in India and the US with meditation masters, S.Muktananda and S.Chidvilasananda. Since 2003 she has studied Insight Dialogue, trained and taught with Gregory Kramer. Florence holds degrees in education and psychotherapy and is a licensed family therapist. She is a senior teacher at the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where she also directs Oasis, An Institute for Mindfulness-Based Professional Education and Innovation. She has trained and taught with Saki Santorelli EdD and Jon Kabat-Zinn,PhD. Florence lives and works in central Massachusetts. |
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Karin Meyers was Associate Professor at Rangjung Yeshe Institute Kathmandu University’s Centre for Buddhist Studies from 2011 to 2018, where she also served as Director of the Masters Program in Buddhist Studies (from 2013-2018). In 2018 she taught at Princeton and George Washington University, and is at Smith College in 2020. She is currently a Retreat Support Fellow at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA. Karin’s scholarly work focuses on Buddhist psychology, ethics, and contemplative systems; Buddhism and free will; and philosophical and religious studies perspectives on Buddhist ideas. From 1997-1998 she worked at the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and has taught several courses on “socially engaged Buddhism” over the years. She has practiced meditation in both Theravāda and Tibetan Buddhist traditions.
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Jessica Morey, MA, is the Executive Director, lead teacher and cofounder of Inward Bound Mindfulness Education (iBme), a nonprofit organization bringing in-depth mindfulness and compassion training to teens, young adults and the parents and professionals who support them. She has been leading meditation retreats since 2009 through iBme and with Insight communities since 2014.
Jessica began practicing meditation at age 14 on teen retreats offered by the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) and then participated in the IMS young adult mentoring group for ten years. In her late teens she traveled to monasteries in Burma and India to practice Vipassana meditation intensively, and was introduced to Tibetan Buddhist meditation at that time. Meditation and contemplative practice have been central to her life and work – whether focused on clean energy and climate policy or growing an international youth mindfulness organization. Her experience of bringing mindfulness into her work and life was described in a 2012 Shambala Sun article ‘Dharma 2.0.’ Her published works range from the chapter ‘Ordinary Awakening’ in Blue Jean Buddha to Conflict Resolution of the Boruca Hydro-Energy Project: Renewable Energy Production in Costa Rica. She combined these areas of passion in an article in the Shambhala Sun, Bodhi Trees, about the potential of Buddhist practice to heal our relationship with the natural world. She holds a BA in Environmental Engineering from Dartmouth College and Masters degrees in Sustainable Development and International Affairs. She loves dancing, yoga, and being outside. |
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Mark Nunberg began his practice in 1982 and has been teaching meditation since 1990. He co-founded Common Ground Meditation Center in Minneapolis in 1993 with Wynn Fricke and continues to serve as Co-Guiding Teacher along with Shelly Graf. Mark has studied with both Asian and Western teachers and finds deep inspiration in the teachings of the Buddha. Mark practiced as a monk for five months in Burma and completed four three-month retreats at Insight Meditation Society Retreat Center, as well as many months of intensive retreat practice at The Forest Refuge. Mark continues to be a grateful student of Buddhist practice.
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Lama Rod Owens is a Black Buddhist Southern Queen. An international influencer with a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School. Author of Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger and co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation, his teachings center on freedom, self-expression, and radical self-care.
A leading voice in a new generation of Buddhist teachers with over 11 years of experience, Lama Rod activates the intersections of his identity to create a platform that’s very natural, engaging, and inclusive. Applauded for his mastery in balancing weighty topics with a sense of lightness, the Queen has been featured by various national and international news outlets. Highly sought after for talks, retreats, and workshops, his mission is showing you how to heal and free yourself. Wanna keep tabs on what Lama Rod is doing next? Be sure to sign up for his email list here. Stay tuned to his website here for upcoming offerings and click here for bookings and other requests. (photo credit: Lynsey Weatherspoon) |
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Yanai Postelnik has been engaged in full-time dharma practice and service since 1990. He is inspired by the Thai Forest Tradition and nourished by time spent in nature, and has been teaching retreats around the world for over 25 years. Yanai is a member of the Guiding Teacher Council of Gaia House, in Devon, England, and of the Core Faculty of Insight Meditation Society, Massachusetts. Since 2018, Yanai has been actively engaged together with many others, in calling for an urgent response to the climate and ecological emergency. You can read more about Yanai here and directly access many of Yanai’s dharma talks here.
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Vance Pryor, PsyD, began insight meditation in 1998. He has been deeply influenced by the teachings of Sayadaw U Pandita and Sayadaw U Tejaniya. His training to become a teacher has been supported by the mentorship of Steve Armstrong and Kamala Masters. He is a recent graduate of IMS’s 2017-2021 Teacher Training Program.
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Tuere Sala is a Guiding Teacher at Seattle Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock Retreat Center. She is a retired prosecuting attorney who has practiced Vipassana meditation for over 30 years. Tuere is committed to lay practice and inspired by bringing the Dharma to nontraditional places. She is a strong advocate for practitioners living with high stress, past trauma and difficulties sitting still. Tuere has been teaching since 2010 and has a long history of assisting others in establishing and maintaining a daily practice.
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Greg Scharf began meditating in 1992 and has been teaching residential meditation retreats since 2007, including the annual 3 month retreat at the Insight Meditation Society where he serves as a guiding teacher. In his teaching Greg emphasizes the understanding that meditation is fundamentally an exploration of nature and natural processes. He also stresses the critical importance of bringing the qualities of kindness, compassion, and a sense of humor to practice. Greg has a long-standing relationship with the country and people of Burma (Myanmar) where he trained as a Buddhist monk and where he works with a small humanitarian aid project - particularly targeting education, health-care, and support of Buddhist Nuns. Currently living in the high country of northern Arizona, Greg's love of nature and the outdoors deeply informs both his practice and teaching.
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Dawn Scott has been practicing Insight Meditation since 2008. She is a graduate of the Insight Meditation Society’s 2017 – 2021 teacher training program, a co-principal teacher of Marin Sangha, and is a core teacher of Spirit Rock’s Liberation, Emptiness, and Awareness Practices (LEAP) Program. Dawn has a deep love of long retreat practice and the Buddha's liberative teachings.
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Maureen Shannon-Chapple has been a practitioner of yoga and meditation since her teenage years. Her professional life has included classroom teaching, parenting trainings, adult education, and college teaching. She is a 2008 graduate of Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Community Dharma Leader Training, and has led groups including InsightLA’s Family Program, mindfulness classes, and the weekly Tuesday Night Sitting Group at Loyola Marymount University.
Maureen co-leads, with Trudy Goodman, InsightLA’s Facilitator Training Program. She also teaches in the Mindful USC program and other community sites. She is currently with one of the teams of teachers anchoring the monthly Mindful of Whiteness: Anti-Racism Practices for White People group at InsightLA. |
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Jill Shepherd began practicing insight meditation in Thailand in 1999, and since that time has lived and worked at several meditation centres and monasteries in the US, Australia, England, and Thailand. She recently spent seven years on staff at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, Massachusetts, where she participated in several long retreats and Buddhist study programmes, as well as offering weekly meditation classes at a nearby men’s prison.
She is a graduate of the IMS / Spirit Rock teacher training program in the US, under the guidance of Joseph Goldstein and Gil Fronsdal. Currently, she divides her time mostly between the USA, Australia and New Zealand, teaching vipassana and brahmavihara retreats and offering ongoing study and practice groups focused on bringing the dharma into daily life. She also leads courses and non-residential workshops exploring the relational practice of Insight Dialogue, as developed by Gregory Kramer and colleagues. Jill is an independent meditation teacher and is not financially supported by any meditation centre or Buddhist organisation. She relies entirely on dana for her livelihood. |
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Aishah Shahidah Simmons (she/her) is a survivor-healer, a Theravadin Buddhist, and a trauma-informed Mindfulness meditation teacher. She’s been studying and practicing vipassana meditation since 2002. Aishah studied and practiced exclusively for 17 years in the S.N. Goenka lineage, including sitting and serving 40 residential vipassana meditation retreats ranging from 10-30 days in the U.S. and in India. In the fall of 2019, she began studying and practicing in the Insight lineage. Her primary teachers are Tuere Sala and DaRa Williams. Aishah is also an award-winning Black feminist lesbian filmmaker and author whose acclaimed work breaks silences around childhood and adult sexual violence, offer healing paths for trauma, and provide distinct visions for humanely disrupting the inhumane epidemic of sexual violence. Learn more about Aishah at https://linktr.ee/afrolez.
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Dave Smith
For nearly 30 years, Dave Smith has held a practice rooted in the Insight Meditation (Vipassana) tradition. He was empowered to teach through the Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society. Dave teaches residential meditation retreats, weekly live dharma classes, online courses, and workshops. He has developed educational tools and resources, including mindfulness and emotional skills trainings, in both secular and Buddhist contexts. Dave also works with students 1:1 through his dharma mentoring program. In 2016 he founded the Secular Dharma Foundation to foster the advancement of emotional and psychological well-being through the education and integration of mindfulness, psychology, and various therapeutic modalities. Dave has brought dharma and meditative interventions into a variety of settings including jails, prisons, youth detention centers and addiction treatment facilities. Dave lives in rural Colorado with his wife and two sons. |
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Oren Jay Sofer teaches meditation and communication retreats and workshops nationally. A member of the Spirit Rock Teachers Council, he is a Certified Trainer of Nonviolent Communication and a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner for the healing of trauma. Oren also holds a degree in Comparative Religion from Columbia University, is the founder of Next Step Dharma and co-founder of Mindful Healthcare. He is the author of Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication, and co-author of Teaching Mindfulness to Empower Adolescents.
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Marlon Barrios Solano is a Venezuelan-American Insight meditation and embodied awareness instructor-coach, interdisciplinary artist, educator and researcher. With a hybrid background in movement and new media arts, performance studies and cognitive science, he investigates the intersections of dance practices, embodiment, cognition, awareness and its applications on healing and care practices. He is a certified Insight/mindfulness meditation facilitator by Spirit Rock Meditation Center (USA) and under the mentorship of Stephen Batchelor and Chas Dicapua, he studies and practices at Insight Meditation Society (USA) and Beatenberg Meditation Center (Switzerland). He studies Somatics Experiencing and practices Embodyoga with Patty Townsend and Somatic Experiencing at the Trauma healing Institute.
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Phoenix Soleil is the current Race and Engaged Practice resident at Portland Dharma House and a teacher at Open Door Meditation Community in Portland Maine. She is a teacher and practitioner of the Insight Meditation tradition. She is also a teacher and practitioner of Nonviolent Communication (NVC), a form of compassionate communication that supports us in attuning to our feelings and values for more successful interactions. She has led trainings in communication, racial justice, and meditation for organizations such as Google, Kellogg Foundation, UC Berkeley, Insight Meditation Society and Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute. The most important ingredients in her trainings are fun, passion, and intimacy. She is available for one-on-one coaching. Check out her website for more info and videos.
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Janet Surrey, PhD, is an Insight Dialogue Teacher. She teaches Insight Dialogue retreats worldwide and leads a monthly practice group in the Boston area. Jan has been a faculty member of Metta’s Relational Insight Meditation Program and serves on Metta Programs’ Teachers Council.
Jan has studied with a number of Vipassana teachers for over 25 years, and has worked with Gregory Kramer since 2007. Her original teacher was Vimala Thakar, but Jan has also done many retreats with Thich Nhat Hanh and Joanna Macy. In 2008 she completed a two and a half year Community Dharma Leader training at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Jan is a practicing clinical psychologist and founding scholar of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute at the Wellesley Centers for Women. She is on the faculty and board of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. Jan is dedicated to a lifelong exploration of the power of relationships to create suffering and the power of relationships to liberate and transform suffering. Jan lives in Newton, Massachusetts. |
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Nolitha Tsengiwe is a Dharma teacher and board member at Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat Center, in South Africa that was founded by Kittisaro and Thanisara Weinberg. She has practiced since 1997 under Kittisaro and Thanissara, who are of Ajahn Chah's lineage. In her first retreat with these beloved teachers she discovered silence as a refuge and has never looked back. Nolitha completed the Community Dharma leadership program (CDL4) under Spirit Rock in 2014 and is at present a teacher trainee with IMS. Nolitha is a Psychologist in private practice and is trained in Karuna ( Group psychotherapy based on Buddhist principles) and Somatic Experiencing (SE). She is an executive coach and facilitator in leadership development. She offers in South Africa under Dharmagiri Race Work for reconciliation using Insight Dialogue principles. She has recently been appointed by Spirit Rock as a mentor for the TTCP program.
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Bart van Melik is Guiding Teacher at the Community Meditation Center in NYC. Trained by Joseph Goldstein, Carol Wilson, and Gregory Kramer, he has taught meditation worldwide since 2009. Co-author of Still, in the City: Creating Peace of Mind in the Midst of Urban Chaos, Bart is originally from Holland.
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Jesse Maceo Vega-Frey's teaching aims to inspire the skills, determination, and faith necessary to realize the deepest human freedom. He is a student of Michele McDonald and his approach is rooted in the tradition of Mahasi Sayadaw of Burma. As a teacher of Vipassana (insight) meditation within the broader context of Theravadan Buddhism, his teaching encourages an exploration of the relationship between ethics, insight, and action. Perpetually intrigued by the dynamics between inner and outer change, Jesse is a writer of numerous essays and author of Insurgent Heart: A Vipassana Manual for the Guerrilla Yogi. He is a spoon carver who loves to teach people about how to work with their hands and explore the relationship between labor, ownership, and kamma. He is the resident teacher for Vipassana Hawai’i and teaches around the world.
Jesse was a co-founder of The Stone House, a center for spiritual life and social justice in Mebane, NC, was a long-time board member of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, and faculty member of the Center for Whole Communities. |
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Venerable Mahayaye Vineetha is a Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhist monk. Before he received his higher ordination in 2014, he, as a novice (sāmaṇera), followed a 12-year monastic training. He is currently studying at Harvard Divinity School for his masters' degree.
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Karen Waconda-Lewis is a native from Isleta/Laguna Pueblo. After initiation into the Native Medicine, she brought the native medicine into an urban American Indian health clinic in Albuquerque, NM and continues to expand the program to local hospitals, Indian Health Service, VA Hospital and surrounding organizations. She joins Western Medicine with Native healing in preventive health, mental health and overall well-being. She is the founder and director of Center for Native American Integrative Healing, LLC located in Albuquerque, where other indigenous healers practice their traditional medicine and extends out to the community. She also is the founder of Wa’Kanda Retreat & Spa which brings in holistic, chemical free, healing for those in chronic need.
She is a graduate of Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader and regularly provides dharma teachings with integration of native teachings throughout NM, nationally and at Insight Meditation Society-staff and teacher training. She has interconnected the native teachings with Vipassana teachings into ceremonies, sweat lodges and into her community at Laguna Pueblo. At Laguna Pueblo, the ancestral teaching of mindfulness compliment the Buddhist teachings at the Detention center at Laguna pueblo giving insight and wellness to the inmates and families. She is co-founder of the Annual Indigenous and Native Healer’s Silent Retreats and Albuquerque POC and Allies Sangha. |
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Arinna Weisman has studied insight meditation since 1979 and has been teaching since 1989. Her root teacher is Ruth Denison who was empowered by the great teacher U Bha Khin. She is the founding teacher of Insight Meditation Center of the Pioneer Valley. She is co-author of the book, A Beginner’s Guide to Insight Meditation and a contributor to Women Practicing Buddhism: American Experiences, edited by Peter Gregory and Susanne Mrozik.
Her dharma practice and teaching have been infused with her political and environmental activism. She was the first out queer teacher with Eric Kolvig to lead insight meditation retreats for the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Gender Queer community. She also leads ‘Uncovering the Heart Retreats’ integrating the practice of awareness of the social dynamics of inequity with the dharma practice of liberation. |
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Carolyn West has had a dedicated Vipassana practice for over 25 years which over time has become the central axis of her life as a friend, a Dhamma sister, a partner, a mother and grandmother. Recently and quite by happenstance, she has been discovering and enjoying the intersection of her Vipassana practice and the practice of learning poetry by heart.
In addition, she is a contentedly and mostly retired psychologist whose career history includes clinical work in the area of learning disabilities, teaching, as well as a therapy practice catering primarily to young people and their caregivers. In the early 2000s she was trained in and began teaching MBSR, subsequently beginning a course for college students which incorporated the 8-week program into an offering on stress and its physiological and psychological effects. Carolyn also devoted almost 2 decades to teaching MBSR and training teachers for programs at the University of Massachusetts, Worcester as well as the University of California, San Diego. |
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Cheryl Wilfong is a co-founder of Vermont Insight Meditation Center (www.vermontinsight.org) where she regularly teaches meditation when she isn’t rearranging one of her 28 flowerbeds or tending her out-of-control vegetable garden. Master Gardener and mistress of metaphor, she delivers the Dharma into daily life in the garden on her award-winning blog www.themeditativegardener.blogspot.com. She is particularly interested in the parallels between nature and human nature.
In 2008, Cheryl graduated from the Community Dharma Leader program sponsored by Spirit Rock Meditation Center. She has completed the Integrated Study and Practice Program at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. She is currently studying non-duality with Eric Lindo. She discovered gardening the same year she attended her first retreat at Insight Meditation Society in 1977. She has a Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology from Antioch University New England, with a concentration in Mindfulness. She completed an internship with John Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program. For more information, visit cherylwilfong.com or breastcancermindfulness.com. |
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Dr. Christopher Willard (PsyD) is a psychologist and educational consultant based in Boston specializing in mindfulness. He has been practicing meditation for 20 years, and has led hundreds of workshops around the world, with invitations to more than two dozen countries. He currently serves on the board of directors at the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy, and is the president of the Mindfulness in Education Network.
He has presented at TEDx conferences and his thoughts have appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, mindful.org, and elsewhere. He is the author of Child’s Mind (2010) Growing Up Mindful (2016) Raising Resilience (2017) and eight other books for parents, professionals and children, along with six sets of cards and therapeutic games, available in more than ten languages. He teaches at Harvard Medical School.is the author of eleven books, including Raising Resilience, Growing Up Mindful, Child's Mind, and many more. He consults out of his Boston-area office and travels nationally and internationally to do 60 talks a year on mindfulness, positive psychology, mental health, and performance. Learn more at www.drchristopherwillard.com. |