As a monk, I bring a strong commitment, along with the renunciate flavor, to the classic Buddhist teachings. I play with ideas, with humor and a current way of expressing the teachings, but I don't dilute them.
Sitting in a field of fifty to eighty people really starts my mind sparking. Since I don't prepare my talks ahead of time, I find myself listening to what I'm saying along with everyone else. This leaves a lot of room for the Dhamma to come up. Just having eighty people listening to me is enough to engage me, stimulate me, and create a nice flow of energy. The actual process of teaching evokes ideas that even I did not realize were being held somewhere in my mind.
Different teaching situations offer their own unique value. In retreat, you are able to build a cohesive and comprehensive body of the teachings. When people are not on retreat and come for one session, it opens a different window. They are more spontaneous and I'm given the chance to contact them in ways that are closer to their "daily-life mind." This brings up surprises and interesting opportunities for me to learn even more.
I'm continually struck by how important it is to establish a foundation of morality, commitment, and a sense of personal values for the Vipassana teachings to rest upon. Personal values have to be more than ideas. They have to actually work for us, to be genuinely felt in our lives. We can't bluff our way into insight. The investigative path is an intimate experience that empowers our individuality in a way that is not egocentric. Vipassana encourages transpersonal individuality rather than ego enhancement. It allow for a spacious authenticity to replace a defended personality.
Bhante Sukhacitto is a German Theravadan monk since 1990 and was originally with Ajahn Buddhadasa in Thailand. 1993 he returned to the West and lived several years in branches of the Ajahn Chah monasteries in Switzerland and the UK. Since 2005 he practices Insight Dialogue and was trained as a teacher and teaches worldwide. 2016 he established near Hannover, Germany Kalyana Mitta Vihara – House of Noble Friendship, a small Dhamma Community and Meditation Centre.
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 monastic in the Forest Tradition at Amaravati and Chithurst monasteries in England from 1992 until 2009, when she moved to the US to help open more opportunities for women to live the monastic life. She took full Bhikkhuni Ordination in 2011. Her practice and teaching are guided by early Buddhist scriptures, living in community, and through nature’s pure and immediate Dhamma.
Santacitta Bhikkhuni hails from Austria and trained as a nun in England & Asia from 1993 until 2009, primarily in the lineage of Ajahn Chah and has also received teachings in the Shechen lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. She is committed to our planet as a living being and resides at 'Aloka Earth Room', currently located in San Rafael, California. Santacitta Bhikkhuni stammt aus Österreich and begann ihre Nonnenausbildung 1993 in England & Asien, vor allem in der Traditionslinie von Ajahn Chah und hat auch Unterweisungen in der Shechen Traditionslinie des Tibetischen Buddhisms erhalten. Sie ist unserem Planeten als lebendes Wesen verpflichtet und lebt im 'Aloka Earth Room', derzeit in San Rafael, Kalifornien.
Bhante Buddharakkhita was born and raised in Uganda. Meditating since 1993, he was ordained as a Theravada Buddhist monk in 2002. Now residing at Bhavana Society in WV, he teaches worldwide and in 2005 founded the Uganda Buddhist Centre.
Bhikkhu Bodhi is an American Buddhist monk originally from New York City. He lived as a monk in Sri Lanka for 24 years and now lives at Chuang Yen Monastery in upstate New York. Ven. Bodhi has many important publications to his credit, either as author, translator or editor, including The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha (Majjhima Nikaya, 1995) and The Connected Discourses of the Buddha (Samyutta Nikaya, 2000). A full translation of the Anguttara Nikaya is due out in 2011. In 2008 he founded Buddhist Global Relief, a Buddhist organization dedicated to providing relief from poverty and hunger among impoverished communities worldwide.
Dharma practice is medicine for the mind -- something particularly needed in a culture like ours that actively creates mental illness in training us to be busy producers and avid consumers. As individuals, we become healthier through our Dharma practice, which in turn helps bring sanity to our society at large.
Giving dharma talks offers me the opportunity to express gratitude for my Thai teachers -- Ajahn Fuang Jotiko and Ajahn Suwat Suvaco -- in appreciation of the many years they spent training me, which came with the understanding that the teachings continue past me. Giving dharma talks also pushes me to articulate what I haven''t yet verbalized to myself in English. This in turn enriches my own practice. When you help a wide variety of people deal with their issues, it helps you practice with yours.
When giving a talk, I try to remain true to three things: my training, my study of the early Buddhist texts, and the needs of my listeners. The challenge is to find the point where all three meet -- not as a compromise, but in their genuine integrity.
For this, I play with analogy. Meditation is a skill, and our meeting point as people, whatever our culture, lies in our experience in mastering skills: how to sew clothes, cook a meal, or build a shelter. So I've found that one of the most effective ways of explaining subtle points in meditation is to find analogies with more mundane skills. Through the language of analogy we find common ground from which our practice can grow to meet our individual needs, and yet remain true to its universal roots.
Venerable Metteyya Sakyaputta was born in the same place as the Buddha: Lumbini, Nepal. Though he has primarily studied under the Theravada tradition, Metteyya has also received teachings directly from the well known Tibetan Buddhist master of Sakya tradition His Eminence Chogye Trichen Rimpoche. He has also studied with the Vietnamese Pure Land tradition and has thorough comparative, theoretical and practical understanding of the various Buddhist traditions. He says that knowledge of many traditions of Buddhism has helped him to pinpoint the core and most essential Buddhist teachings.
He prefers to devote his time working for the youth and rural communities of Lumbini. Metteyya has always been involved in social service and environmental work in his community and when he was 15 he founded Metta Children's School which has now grown to two branches and provides free education to over 800 impoverished local children. Metteyya is very cognizant of the status of women in the local culture and along with his Dharma mother, built and recently began operating Sakyadhita Nunnery to provide empowering and educational options to local girls who would otherwise face child marriage. They are now working on building a girls’ college there too.
Ven. Dr. Pannavati is Co-Abbot of Embracing Simplicity Hermitage. An African-American Buddhist monk ordained in the Theravada and Mahayana traditions and with transmission from Roshi Bernie Glassman of Zen Peacemakers, she is both contemplative and empowered for compassionate service. More than 70 homeless youth between the ages of 17 and 21 have resided at the hermitage over the past 2 ½ years and that effort has evolved into a separate 501(c)(3), MyPlace, Inc. which has its own accredited high school, jobs training program, youth center and residential program. An international teacher, she advocates on behalf of disempowered women and youth globally; and insists on equality and respect in Buddhist life for both female monastics and lay sangha. She was a 2008 recipient of the Outstanding Buddhist Women’s Award. In 2009, she received a special commendation from the Princess of Thailand for Humanitarian Acts and ordained the first Thai Bhikkhunis, on Thai soil with Thai monks as witnesses. In May 2010 she convened a platform of Bhikkhunis to ordain 10 Cambodian Samaneris, performing the ceremony in a Cambodian temple, witnessed by Cambodian abbots and sanctioned by Maha Thera Ven. Dhammathero Sao Khon, President of the Community of Khmer Buddhist Monks of the US. Finally, Venerable is a founding circle director of Women of Compassionate Wisdom, a 21st century trans-lineage Buddhist Order and Sisterhood. She recently ordained their first American oblate.
Sayalay Susila has been a Theravada nun for the last 20 years. Sister started her vipassana insight meditation during her university days, while obtaining a degree in Mass Communications (1988) at USM in Malaysia. Before ordination, she practiced as a full-time practitioner for one and a half years. After her ordination, in 1991, she practiced under the guidance of the well-known Venerable Sayadaw U Pandita in Panditarama Monastery, Myanmar, until 1994, at which time she began to practice under the guidance of the Venerable Pa Auk Tawya Sayadaw at the Pa Auk Meditation Centre, Myanmar, where she remains today.
Sayalay Susila was born in 1963, in the state of Pahang, Malaysia, and was ordained as a nun at the age of 28, at the Malaysian Buddhist Meditation Centre (MBMC) in Penang, Malaysia. She speaks fluent English, Hokkien, Chinese, Malay, and Burmese. Beginning in 2000, with the encouragement of her teacher Pa Auk Sayadaw, Sayalay Susila began to teach the Abhidhamma in Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia.
Since 2002, when she conducted a 10-day Abhidhamma course in Toronto, Sayalay Susila has traveled extensively in the U.S. and Canada, teaching Suttas, Abhidhamma and Meditation. Sister Susila’s dhamma talks, which have been widely praised as lucid and precise, have been given at North American Buddhist centres such as Spirit Rock (California) and the Barre Centre for Buddhist Studies (Massachusetts).
In July 2009, she conducted a 10-day meditation course, Concentration and Insight, at Bhavana Society monastery in West Virginia, as well as a Women’s Retreat in July 2011. She has published the books "Unravelling the Mysteries of Mind and Body Through Abhidhamma" in English and "The Nine Attributes of the Buddha in Chinese."
Akincano Marc Weber (Switzerland) is a Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist. He learned to sit still in the early eighties as a Zen practitioner and later joined monastic life in Ajahn Chah’s tradition where he studied and practiced for 20 years in the Forest monasteries of Thailand and Europe. He has studied Pali and scriptures, holds a a degree in Buddhist psychotherapy and lives with his wife in Cologne, Germany from where he teaches Dhamma and meditation internationally.
Teaching is essentially translation. It means ferrying an authentic contemplative tradition across choppy waters into our psychological and cultural realities, losing neither the vision nor the truth of what we know to be our immediate experience.
Alexis has practiced Insight Meditation in India, Burma and the US since 2001. He has been a long-time student of Sayadaw U Tejaniya, including several years of training as a Buddhist Monk under his guidance. Alexis’ teaching emphasizes knowing the mind through a natural and relaxed continuity. He brings a practical, intuitive and compassionate approach to the development of wisdom and qualities of the heart.
Amma Ṭhanasanti is a California born spiritual teacher dedicated to serving all beings. Since she first encountered the Dharma in 1979, she has been committed to awakening. As a former Buddhist nun of 26 years, she combines the precision and rigor of the Ajahn Chah Forest Tradition, compassion, pure awareness practices and a passion for wholeness. Amma has been teaching intensive meditation retreats in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia since 1995. She invites an openness to pause and inquire into the truth of the present moment, integrating what is liberating at the core of our human condition.
As a young child growing up in Tibet, Anam Thubten was intent on entering the monastery, where for much of his childhood and young adult life he received the benefit of extensive academic and spiritual training from several teachers in the Nyingma branch of Tibetan Buddhism. He conveys the Dharma with the blessing of teachers Khenpo Chopel, Lama Garwang and others gone before in a lineage of wisdom holders and enlightened masters. During his formative years in Tibet he also developed a special affinity with a yogi and lifetime hermit Lama Tsurlo, who remains a deep source of inspiration in Anam Thubten’s expression of the Dharma.
After arriving in America in the early 1990’s Anam Thubten began to teach the Dharma at the request of others. Today he travels extensively in the U.S. and occasionally abroad, teaching in fluent English and offering in a direct experiential manner the essence of the timeless, non- conceptual wisdom teachings of the Buddha. These teachings, free of any sect, point directly to one’s true nature as boundless love and wisdom. In his teachings and presence with others, Anam Thubten invites the heart-opening, mind-emptying awakening to one’s true nature that is already enlightened. The transformative power of these teachings that flow from the wisdom mind of the Buddha through teachers such as Anam Thubten is apparent in the lives of many who have embraced them.
Anam Thubten is the author of various articles and books in both the Tibetan and English language. His first book in English appeared under the title ‘No Self, No Problem.’ He is the founder and spiritual advisor of Dharmata Foundation based in Point Richmond, California.
Anam Thubten’s personal scheduling and events coordinator is Joanie Mercer. For event and booking requests please contact Joanie at joanie@dharmata.org or call (512) 330-1741.
Angela Dews found the dharma in 1996, starting with Zen, at Vallecitos Mountain Ranch in New Mexico as a refugee from political and community organizing. She is now fictionalizing those experiences in a series of novels. Angela co-leads the NYI Harlem POC & Allies Sitting Group. As an Army brat, she traveled through the south in the 1950s and fled to Howard University and then Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in the 1960s. She is a graduate of the fourth Community Dharma Leaders Program at Spirit Rock and is blown away by all of that.
Bart van Melik has been teaching personal meditation and Insight Dialogue since 2009, with a specific focus on working with diverse populations. He is a graduate of the Community Dharma Leader Program at Spirit Rock and is currently in the Spirit Rock/IMS teacher training program; his mentors are Joseph Goldstein, Carol Wilson, Gregory Kramer and his son Lou. Bart also teaches through the Metta Foundation and is a senior teacher at the Lineage Project. He also teaches meditation and yoga at a VA hospital, juvenile detention center, homeless shelters, and Public Schools in NYC. Bart holds an MA in Psychology of Culture and Religion from the Nijmegen University in The Netherlands. His passion is supporting people to discover how they can find new ways to relate to the stress created by our life circumstances.
Bodhipaksa was born in Scotland, in 1961. He has been practicing Buddhist meditation since 1982, and became a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order in 1993. He formerly ran a retreat center in the Scottish Highlands, taught meditation as part of the University of Montana's religious studies program, and has also taught in prisons in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. He now promotes the practice of meditation on his website, Wildmind. Bodhipaksa is the author of more than a dozen books and audiobooks on meditation and Buddhism. He lives in New Hampshire, and teaches at Aryaloka Buddhist Center in Newmarket. He has two young children.
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.
Chas DiCapua is currently the Insight Meditation Society's Resident Teacher, and has offered meditation since 1998. He is interested in how each person can fully and uniquely manifest the dharma. He teaches regularly at sitting groups and centers close to IMS.
Colin Beavan is among the world’s best known spokespeople on environmental issues, consumerism and human quality of life. His writing, speaking, consulting and activism have encouraged tens of thousands of people to examine their lives to discover what’s really important to them. He is the author of How to Be Alive: A Guide to the Kind of Happiness that Helps the World and No Impact Man. Colin is the executive director of the No Impact Project, the author of the book and the subject of the documentary No Impact Man, a 350.org “Messenger,” a dharma teacher in the Kwan Um School of Zen, and a board member of Transportation Alternatives. He was the Green Party’s candidate for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in the 2012 electoral race for New York’s 8th Congressional district. He holds a PhD from the University of Liverpool and is the author of two books previous to No Impact Man.
Culadasa (John Yates, Ph.D.) is the director of Dharma Treasure Buddhist Sangha in Tucson, Arizona and author of The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Using Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science (Dharma Treasure Press, October 6, 2015). A meditation master with over four decades of experience in the Tibetan and Theravadin Buddhist traditions, Culadasa was ordained as an Upasaka (dedicated lay-practitioner) in 1976 and received ordination in the International Order of Buddhist ministers in Rosemead, California in December 2009.
His principle teachers were Upasaka Kema Ananda and the Venerable Jotidhamma Bhikkhu, both trained in the Theravadin and Tibetan Karma Kagyu traditions with lineage to the Venerable Ananda Bodhi (later recognized by the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa as the tulku Namgyal Rinpoche).
For many years, Culadasa taught physiology and neuroscience and worked at the forefront of the new fields of complementary healthcare education, physical medicine, and therapeutic massage. His unique lineage allows Culadasa to provide his students with a broad and in-depth perspective on the Buddha Dharma. He combines the original teachings of the Buddha with an emerging, scientific understanding of the mind to give students a rich and rare opportunity for rapid progress and profound insight.
DaRa Williams is a trainer, meditation teacher and psychotherapist. DaRa has been a meditator for the past 25 years and is a practitioner of both Vipassana and Ascension meditation. She is a graduate of the Spirit Rock/Insight Meditation Society Teacher Training Program and is a Guiding Teacher at IMS. She is the Program Manager and a core teacher in the current IMS Teacher Training. DaRa has been a clinician and administrator in the field of Mental Health for over 25 years and currently maintains a private practice in Manhattan. She is a certified trainer and practitioner of Indigenous Focusing-Oriented Therapy and Complex Trauma. DaRa integrates these skills, understandings, wisdom traditions and worldviews in her intention for contributing to the ending of suffering for all beings.
"It is my belief that vipassana meditation and the dharma are ideal for transforming suffering, particularly the trauma of oppression and its many vicissitudes-where the chains around our minds and hearts can be broken and dissolved. Awareness and wisdom become the vehicle for freedom and transforming lives."
Dave Smith is a Buddhist meditation teacher, addiction treatment specialist, experienced speaker, and published author. He is empowered to teach by Noah Levine of Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society and received training in Buddhist psychology from the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (BCBS). HE has operated intensive programs and trainings for the Nashville office of the Mind Body Awareness Project (MBA), as well as providing services, workshops and trainings for Refuge Recovery. Dave has extensive experience bringing meditative interventions into jails, prisons, youth detention centers and addiction treatment facilities. He is the guiding teacher of the Against the Stream Nashville Meditation Center and teaches over 300 meditation classes and workshops a year. Dave teaches Buddhist meditation retreats internationally and is an active teacher for Against the Stream throughout the US. He provides direct services for mental health agencies, the public library, and speaks nationally at Addiction and Behavioral Health conferences. Dave recently relocated to Los Angeles.
David R. Loy is especially interested in the conversation between Buddhism and modernity. His books include A New Buddhist Path, Ecodharma: Buddhist teachings for the Ecological Crisis, Nonduality, Lack and Transcendance, A Buddhist History of the West, The Great Awakening, Money Sex War Karma and The World Is Made of Stories. A Zen practitioner for many years, he is qualified as a teacher in the Sanbo Zen tradition.
George Mumford has taught meditation since 1986 in a range of environments, from prisons to Harvard Medical School. He is the author of The Mindful Athlete: Secrets to Pure Performance.
Gina Sharpe is a founding teacher of New York Insight. She discovered the Dharma over 30 years ago and has studied and practiced in Asia and the United States. She was trained as a Retreat Teacher under the mentorship of Jack Kornfield. She teaches at Retreat Centers and meditation communities around the United States, including at a maximum security prison for women. She holds two meditation classes in Westchester County, New York.
Gregory has been teaching meditation since 1980. He developed the practice of Insight Dialogue, offering retreats worldwide and authoring books including Insight Dialogue: The Interpersonal Path to Freedom and Dharma Contemplation: Meditating Together with Wisdom Texts.
I have always enjoyed working with practitioners who are continuing to deepen their practice. In the many long retreats I teach at both IMS and Spirit Rock, I feel free to pass on the deepest pointings I’ve found in the teachings of the Buddha in the Pali Canon. Those are my guiding lights in practice and understanding.
It is fun for me to take the most difficult concepts and put them into accessible language, to unwrap the mystery. So I try to find ways to explore the breadth of concepts like "emptiness" -- to see how the entire path can be explained in terms of this synonym for nibbana. One of my aims is to bring the goal of freedom into the here and now. This way practitioners get a taste of freedom, so they know what they are heading toward on their journey to liberation.
The tools of mindfulness and lovingkindness can be picked up by anyone. They are easy to understand and they bring immediate benefit to our lives. The essence of vipassana is ideally suited to western society, especially to the resonance between our psychological turn of mind and our quest for spiritual understanding.
Jan Willis (BA and MA in Philosophy, Cornell University; PhD in Indic and Buddhist Studies, Columbia University, 1976) is Professor of Religion at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. She has studied with Tibetan Buddhists in India, Nepal, Switzerland and the U.S. for over four decades, and has taught courses in Buddhism for thirty-nine years. She is the author of The Diamond Light: An Introduction to Tibetan Buddhist Meditation (1972), On Knowing Reality: The Tattvartha Chapter of Asanga's Bodhisattvabhumi (1979), Enlightened Beings: Life Stories from the Ganden Oral Tradition (1995); and the editor of Feminine Ground: Essays on Women and Tibet (1989). Additionally, Willis has published a number of articles and essays on various topics in Buddhism—Buddhist meditation, hagiography, women and Buddhism, and Buddhism and race. In 2001, she authored the memoir, Dreaming Me: An African American Woman’s Spiritual Journey (re-issued October 1, 2008 by Wisdom Publications as Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist, and Buddhist—One Woman’s Spiritual Journey).
In December of 2000, Time magazine named Willis one of six “spiritual innovators for the new millennium.” In 2003, she was a recipient of Wesleyan University’s Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching. Newsweek magazine’s “Spirituality in America” issue in September of 2005 included a profile of her and, in its May 2007 edition, Ebony magazine named Willis one of its “Power 150” most influential African Americans.
At the end of 2012, Willis spent several weeks in a Buddhist nunnery in Thailand and conducted research on the diverse ways that Thai women practice Buddhism.
As someone who began teaching in the 2000s, I am enormously grateful to those who have come before me -- and interested to bring new perspectives and sensibilities (generational, queer, multi-traditional, justice-focused) to the timeless truths of the dhamma.
Jeffrey B. Rubin Ph.D practices psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy and teaches meditation in New York City and Bedford Hills, New York. He is considered one of the leading integrators of the Western psychotherapeutic and eastern meditative traditions. A Sensei in the Nyogen Senzaki and Soen Nakagawa Rinzai Zen lineage and the creator of meditative psychotherapy, a practice that he developed through insights gained from decades of study, teaching and trying to helping people flourish, Jeffrey is the author of the new ebook, Practicing Meditative Psychotherapy and the critically acclaimed books Meditative Psychotherapy, The Art of Flourishing, Psychotherapy and Buddhism, The Good Life and A Psychoanalysis for Our Time. Dr. Rubin has taught at various universities, psychoanalytic institutes and Buddhist and yoga centers. He lectures around the country and has given workshops at the United Nations, the Esalen Institute, the Open Center and the 92nd Street Y. A blogger for Huffington Post, Psychology Today, Rewireme, and Elephant Journal, his pioneering approach to psychotherapy and Buddhism has been featured in The New York Times Magazine. His website is drjeffreyrubin.com.
Jill Satterfield has been a quiet pioneer in the integration of embodied awareness practices and Buddhist teachings for over 30 years.
Her heart, mind and body approach developed from somatic and contemplative psychology, 35 years of Buddhist study, extensive meditation retreat time and decades of living with chronic pain.
At the invitation of her primary teacher, Ajahn Amaro, Jill was the first to offer mindful movement and somatic practices on silent retreats first at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and then the Insight Meditation Society 30 years ago. She has since developed teacher trainings and mentoring programs that integrate embodied awareness with Dharma ever since.
In addition to teaching embodiment and Dharma with Ajahn Amaro, she was also invited to teach on Tsoknyi Rinpoche’s retreats in the US and Nepal. It was at his urging that she teach subtle body practices to his students. She contributed movement practices to his brother Mingyur Rinpoche’s retreats and was a consultant for his 2 best-selling books.
Jill’s Applied Embodied Mindfulness Trainings were part of UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center. She was on the faculty for Spirit Rock’s Mindful Yoga and Meditation Training, and she is currently a mentor for Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach’s Mindfulness Teacher Training. She was the scholar and teacher in residence at Kripalu Center in 2003 and is a graduate of the Sati Center’s Buddhist Chaplaincy Training.
Her organization School for Compassionate Action was a training and service organization that taught mindfulness and somatic practices for chronic pain, illness and post 9/11 trauma in NYC hospitals and at-risk facilities for over ten years. She has been featured in and has written for numerous publications such as Tricycle, Lion’s Roar and the NY Times.
Jon Aaron is a teacher at New York Insight. His principal teacher has been Matthew Flickstein of The Forest Way, with whom he has done teacher training, and participated in several two year training programs. As well, he has completed teacher training in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction at the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts. He has also completed the Integrated Study and Practice Program at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, and the Foundations in Buddhist Contemplative Care at the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care.
After decades of practice and teaching, what inspires me are those moments when I can see the habitual as if it were for the first time. If such moments occur while I'm giving a talk, then the teacher in me can hear its own words imbued with the freshness imparted by those who truly listen -- the multiple aspects of myself being part of the audience as well. Thanks for your participation in the process.
I have two main aims in teaching. The first is to spread the dharma as widely as possible, offering it to as many different people as I can. The second is to teach a smaller number of people over sustained periods of time. This in-depth teaching engages my tremendous love for intensive, long-term meditation practice, where people can immerse themselves in the retreat experience and see how it transforms their understanding.
Although deeply rooted in the Vipassana tradition of Theravada Buddhism, I enjoy working with various skillful means from different Buddhist schools to help convey the essence of all practice, the one dharma of liberation. This essential dharma includes the wisdom of non-clinging, the motivation of compassion to practice for the benefit of all beings, and the potential for liberation within us all.
Given the speed and complexity of our culture, the Buddha's teachings offer a much-needed means to slow down, a way to create some inner calm. We need to touch base with this place of tranquillity in order to allow our bodies and minds to unwind. We then have the chance to see more deeply and profoundly the nature of our lives, how we create suffering and how we can be free. The dharma begins with the development of calm and it carries us all the way to liberation.
Josh Korda is Buddhist pastor and counselor, as well as an author of books and articles exploring the intersections of contemporary therapeutic modalities, especially focusing on integrating attachment theory with the principles of Buddhist psychology. Since 2005 Josh has been the guiding teacher of a large spiritual community in New York with over 4000 members; his podcast, on buddhist psychology, has accumulated 2.5 million downloads. For the last 15 years his work has focused on providing one-on-one spiritual counseling to hundreds of members of the Dharma Punx NYC community, which is largely composed of individuals in recovery and addressing attachment disturbances. Josh’s latest publication is ‘Unsubscribe’ (Wisdom Publishers/Simon & Schuster).
Hi! I’m a meditation teacher, facilitator and writer based in Philadelphia. I teach classes and retreats on mindfulness, creativity, and social change in museums, universities, and meditation retreat centers all around. A lifelong dancer turned systems change nerd, I've also trained hundreds of business and nonprofit leaders to use embodied awareness practices that support resilience, spark innovation, shift culture and inform organizational transformation. I just finished a book called Radical Friendship: Seven Ways to Love Yourself and Find Your People in an Unjust World (August 2020 - Shambhala Publications).
With almost two decades of dedicated mindfulness practice in the Insight Meditation tradition, Kathy is a founding member of DharmaPunx NYC. Since 2012, Spirit Rock Teacher Heather Sundberg has been her primary teacher, supporting practice & providing ongoing mentoring in her capacity as a teacher. Additionally, Kathy is an Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Community Facilitator, has completed a 400 hour coaching certification through iPEC and is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner in Training. In addition to teaching weekly classes at DharmaPunx NYC and MNDFL, Kathy is available for corporate and individual sessions geared towards developing mindfulness in daily life and leads regular Breathwork Circles for adventurous folks who want to take a deep dive into altered states of consciousness. Kathy’s mentoring style emphasizes embodiment, compassion and practical wisdom both on and off the cushion.
Kevin Griffin is the author of the seminal 2004 book "One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps" and the recent "A Burning Desire: Dharma God and the Path of Recovery". He has been practicing Buddhist meditation for three decades and been in recovery since 1985. He’s been a meditation teacher for almost fifteen years. His teacher training was at Spirit Rock Meditation Center where he currently leads Dharma and Recovery classes.
Kittisaro, from Tennessee, a Rhodes Scholar and a Buddhist practitioner for over 35 years including 15 years as a Theravada monk in the Forest School of Ajahn Chah. He is also a practitioner of Pure Land and Chan Buddhism. He is co-founder, with Thanissara of Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat in South Africa and has completed two year long retreats. Kittisaro currently lives in the North Bay, California, teaches at IMS and Spirit Rock, and is co-author of Listening to the Heart, A Contemplative Journey to Engaged Buddhism. He lives in the North Bay CA, and is on the Teacher Council at Spirit Rock, and is a core teacher at IMS.
Lama Rod Owens is the Guiding Teacher for the Radical Dharma Boston Collective and teaches with Inward Bound Mindfulness Education (iBme) where he is also a faculty member for the organization’s teacher training program. He holds a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School with a focus on the intersection of social change, identity, and spiritual practice. He is a co-author of Radical Dharma, Talking Race, Love, and Liberation, which explores race in the context of American Buddhist communities. He also contributed a chapter on working with anger and difficult emotions in the book Real World Mindfulness for Beginners. He has offered talks, retreats, and workshops at Harvard, Yale, Tufts, NYU, and other universities. His current writing project is an exploration of intersectional masculinity and spirituality.
Lani Miller is a teacher at New York Insight Meditation Center. She has been practicing Insight meditation since 1977 and teaching since 2009. Lani is a graduate of the third Community Dharma Leaders Program. She is a Singer/ Songwriter who is interested in how music and other creative arts can be a vehicle for sharing spiritual truths and values.
The method I use most in teaching is anapanasati or mindfulness with breathing. Breath awareness supports us while we investigate the entire mind-body process. It helps calm the mind and gives us a graceful entry into a state of choiceless awareness--a place without agendas, where we are not for or against whatever turns up in the moment.
In this state we relax into ourselves. We allow the mind to empty itself of its own content and take us into a realm of silence.
Choiceless awareness, with the transition into and out of silence, has fascinated me for a long time. What are the barriers to our minds becoming silent? How do we remain in silence long enough to receive its countless benefits? Can we learn to bring thought-free wakefulness into each aspect of our ordinary, daily living?
As lay people we need a practice that helps us learn how to live whole-heartedly, to do justice to the many challenges of lay life, and at the same time grow in the dharma. This includes moving gracefully back and forth between our daily life and intensive retreat practice.
Presently, I am deeply interested in using Buddha's Charter of Freedom of Inquiry, the Kalama Sutta, as a framework for my teaching. In this teaching, the Buddha invites us to question and doubt. It invites us to use personal experience to test and verify the truth of the teachings. This in turn encourages us to acknowledge life's greatest teacher: Life itself.
The challenge for us all is to question ourselves. Do we know how to live? If the answer, in any way, is no, then bring in the dharma and let's see how the teachings help us live in a wise and kind way.
Larry Yang, a longtime meditator, trained as a psychotherapist, has taught meditation since 1999 and is a core teacher at East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, CA. He has practiced in Southeast Asia and was a Buddhist monk in Thailand.
Leigh Brasington studied the jhanas with the late Ven. Ayya Khema, who authorized him to teach retreats on the jhanas. He was also empowered to teach by Jack Kornfield. He teaches numerous jhana retreats throughout the year, at venues that include Cloud Mountain, Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, Gaia House, Vallecitos, and Southern Dharma.
Loch Kelly, M.Div., LCSW is an author, licensed psychotherapist and recognized leader in the field of meditation. He is the founder of the non-profit, Open-Hearted Awareness Institute and has worked in community mental health, established homeless shelters and counseled family members of 9/11. Loch studied Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Nepal and India, served on the New York Insight Teachers Council, and is affiliated with Adyashanti. Loch has collaborated with neuroscientists at Yale, UPenn and NYU in the study of how awareness training can enhance compassion and wellbeing. For more information, www.effortlessmindfulness.org
Born and raised in England, Lorna Kelly moved to America and became the first female fine arts auctioneer in America at Sotheby’s. At a turning point in her life, Ms. Kelly was inspired to travel to India to meet Mother Teresa and to work with her sisters, the Missionaries of Charity—tending to the poorest of the poor in Calcutta.
More recently, Lorna has experienced a series of great highs and lows—as her journey continues, we travel with her to New England where she becomes physically and psychologically lost; in Texas she is a witness to an execution; in New York she is confronted with breast cancer and performs in a major motion picture Sex and the City.
Mark Coleman has been engaged in meditation practice since 1981, primarily within the Insight meditation tradition. He has been teaching meditation retreats since 1997. His teaching is also influenced by his studies with Advaita Vedanta and Tibetan teachers in Asia and the West, and through his teacher training with Jack Kornfield. Mark primarily teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California, though he also teaches nationally, in Europe and India.
He leads backpacking retreats, nature-based retreats, and teaches retreats for environmental activists in the wilderness at Vallecitos Mountain Refuge in New Mexico, and at Knoll Farm in Vermont. In the Bay Area, Mark has a counseling practice, where he integrates his studies of psychotherapy and meditative work. He is the author of “Awake in the Wild - Mindfulness in Nature as a path of Self-Discovery." Mark has been an avid hiker, and backpacker for most of his life and spends much of his time in the outdoors. He lives in the woods in Marin County, Northern California.
Matthew Brensilver, MSW, PhD, serves on the Guiding Teachers Committee and Board of Directors at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. He was previously Program Director for Mindful Schools and for more than a decade, was a core teacher at Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society. Each summer, he lectures at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center on the intersections between mindfulness, science and mental health. Before committing to teach meditation full-time, he spent years doing research on addiction pharmacotherapy at the UCLA Center for Behavioral and Addiction Medicine. He is the co-author of two books about meditation during adolescence.
Nakawe Cuebas Berrios feels blessed to have started along the Buddhist path in 1998 with S.N. Goenka. She then continued under the guidance of Gina Sharpe, and now studies with various other teachers, focusing on longer-term retreats. She serves as a mentor for the Prisoner Correspondence Course, sponsored by the BAUS, and is a midwife in the Bronx community. She is a participant in the 2017-2021 IMS Teacher Training Program.
Nina Wise is a well-known performer who has devoted her career to investigating the relationship between art and spirit. Artistic Director of Motion, she is the recipient of multiple fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Marin Arts Council and has received seven Bay Area Critics Circle Awards. She is the author of A Big New Free Happy Unusual Life: Self-Expression and Spiritual Practice for Those Who Have Time for Neither. Her stories and articles have appeared in The Sun, Yoga Journal, Tricycle, Inquiring Mind and Whole Earth Review.
Developing a clear understanding of the teachings and learning to fully inhabit the body have been core parts of my Dhamma practice. These areas, as well a strong emphasis on the heart, inform and shape my teaching. The few years I spent training as an Anagarika in the Thai Forest monasteries broadened my understanding of the Buddha's teachings and instilled a profound respect for the Bhikkhu and Bhikkhuni Sangha. All along the way, I've been particularly interested in how other modalities like Nonviolent Communication and Somatics can support our growth in awakening.
Pascal Auclair has been immersed in Buddhist practice and study since 1997, sitting retreats in Asia and America with revered monastics and lay teachers. He has been mentored by Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Massachusetts and Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California, where he is now enjoying teaching retreats. Pascal teaches in North America and in Europe. His depth of insight, classical training, and creative expression all combine in a wise and compassionate presence. In addition, his warmth and humour make Pascal a much appreciated teacher.
Peter Doobinin is the guiding teacher of the Downtown Meditation Community. He founded DMC in 2002. Prior to that, Peter was a co-founder of New York Insight Meditation Center. He was a member of the NYI Board of Directors and Teachers Council. Peter has been teaching insight meditation since 1998. Over the years, he’s taught at many places including the New York City Public Schools. He’s taught meditation at NYU, Columbia, Pratt Institute, Hunter College and City College of New York. Peter is a graduate of Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Community Dharma Leaders program. He has studied and practiced extensively at Metta Forest Monastery where Thanissaro Bhikkhu is the abbott. He has also done extended practice at Insight Meditation Society, Spirit Rock and Gaia House. Peter’s dharma book, The Skill of Living, was published in the spring of 2013. His writing has appeared in Tricyle; the anthology Commit to Sit; The New York Times; and other publications. Before becoming a meditation teacher, Peter worked in publishing for Simon & Schuster for more than twenty years. He also writes fiction and published a novel, Suburban Boy, in 2005. He lives in New York City.
Ralph De La Rosa, LCSW is the author of the #1 best selling The Monkey Is the Messenger: Meditation & What Your Busy Mind Is Trying to Tell You. He is a trauma-focused psychotherapist in private practice in NYC and seasoned meditation instructor. He began practicing meditation in 1996 and has taught since 2008. He was a student of Amma’s (Mata Amritanandamayi) for 16 years and began studying Buddhism in 2005. His work has been featured in The New York Post, CNN, GQ, SELF, Women’s Health, and many other publications and podcasts. He regularly leads immersive healing retreats at Omega Institute, Spirit Rock, and Kripalu. Ralph himself is a depression, PTSD, and addiction survivor. His work isinspired by the tremendous transformation he has experienced through meditation, yoga, and therapy. He is currently traveling the world while he works on his second book.
Once called “the most intriguing African-American Buddhist” by Library Journal, Rev. angel Kyodo williams Sensei has been bridging the worlds of spirit and justice since her critically-acclaimed book, Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living With Fearlessness and Grace. Ordained as a Zen priest, she returned to her activist roots and began applying wisdom teaching to social issues to become a leading voice in the ever-emerging field of Transformative Social Change. Recently becoming only the second black woman to be recognized as a Zen teacher, she is known for her unflinching willingness to both sit with and speak uncomfortable truths. angel notes, “Without inner change, there can be no outer change. Without collective change, no change matters.” Whether in writing, teaching or speaking, her voice is unique.
Robert Chodo Campbell is a Soto Zen Buddhist Priest and a student of Pat Enkyo O’Hara, Roshi; he began formal Zen training in 1994. He is a Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. He serves on the Core Faculty for the Center’s Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Programs. Chodo is an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Buddhist Studies, Berkley CA.. He is Co-Director of Contemplative Care Services and serves as chaplain for the Department of Integrative Medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center in NYC.
Sebene Selassie is a meditation teacher and certified Integral Coach®. She has been studying Buddhism since majoring in Comparative Religious Studies as an undergrad at McGill University. For over 20 years she worked with children, youth, and families nationally and internationally for small and large not–for–profits. Her work has taken her everywhere from the Tenderloin in San Francisco to refugee camps in Guinea, West Africa. Sebene is a two–time breast cancer survivor.
The most compelling part of my practice right now comes in the form of my writing. For a long time, I've focused my teaching and writing on lovingkindness. Now as I look more deeply into lovingkindness, I find that it actually rests on another foundation, the expression of faith.
Faith is the topic I am exploring most in teaching and writing. Today there is a tremendous upsurge of interest in a new kind of faith, based on a practice where people can experience a direct spirituality, one without rigid dogma or compulsory belief in a specific cosmology. This is a spirituality that rests on personal transformation.
Vipassana allows us to take a method of mind training and craft a way of life that is more compassionate, more ethical and more powerful than our unawakened lives. The Buddha's teachings give us an immediate experience of what we can do to change. Faith in the teachings means we align ourselves with a vision of our greatest possibilities. This is the heart of the practice.
Dr. Stephen Fulder was born in the UK and received an M.A. from Oxford University and a Ph.D. He has devoted his life to exploring inner and outer healing and spirituality. He is an author and lecturer in herbal and natural medicine with 14 published books. He lives in an environmental village in the Galilee in Israel, which he helped to found and where he grows his own food. Stephen has been practicing Vipassana meditation since 1975, is the founder and senior teacher of the Israel Insight Society, the main Vipassana/Mindfulness organization in Israel, and has been teaching retreats and courses in Buddhist practice for 15 years. He has established programs and organizations, such as ‘Middleway’, which apply these teachings to aid peace and healing in the communities in the Middle East.
My greatest joy is giving the gift of love and hope through the dharma, knowing it is possible for humans to transform their hearts. These dharma gifts include paying attention, practicing clarity and kindness and addressing the suffering of the world--which, of course, includes ourselves.
Right now I'm most enthusiastic about the first gift, paying attention, because it makes every part of our lives better. Paying attention allows us to become more clear, and each moment of clarity is a gift to ourselves and those around us. Clarity keeps us from contributing to more suffering. The gift of clarity and kindness also supports a peaceful heart, which allows us to address the suffering in the world with love. When we practice clarity, we offer the possibility for humans to live in a different way. But a peaceful heart is only the beginning. We also have to take action, go out and directly address the suffering with peace in our hearts.
As a parent, grandparent and a psychotherapist, I teach out of the stories of my life and the lives of those around me. I am especially touched by personal narrative, accounts of spiritual journeys, and how these become vehicles for connecting with the dharma. I believe in revealing my own story so that others are more at ease to reveal theirs. Truth talking is a way out of suffering. Discovering how our hearts and minds work and creating a dialogue supports right speech practice. This is an on-going primary practice that we can do all the time. My hope is that I encourage people how to pay attention and to tell the truth by example.
Thanissara, from London, was a nun for 12 years in the tradition of Ajahn Chah and has taught internationally for over 30 years. She is co-founder of Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat, South Africa, Sacred Mountain Sangha, California, and Chattanooga Insight, Tennessee. She has an MA in Mindfulness Psychotherapy Practice from the Karuna Institute UK and is co-author of Listening to the Heart, A Contemplative Guide to Engaged Buddhism, author of Time To Stand Up, An Engaged Buddhist Manifesto for Our Earth, and several books of poetry. She is a member of the Teacher Council at Spirit Rock and co-guiding teacher of Sacred Mountain Sangha.
Valerie Mason-John is a playwright and author of eight books. She works as a consultant in conflict transformation, restorative justice, leadership, and anti-bullying. She lives in British Columbia, and is chairperson of Vancouver Buddhist Centre, where she leads a weekly meditation class for people in recovery from addiction.
