Meet Our Daily Dharma Gathering Teachers

Joshua bee Alafia

Joshua bee AlafiaJoshua bee Alafia graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 1995 with a BA in Theatre Arts/Film. He currently is a filmmaker and has worked as a teaching artist teaching film, capoeira, tai chi and teaches mindfulness practice through the Lineage Project. He is a graduate of the Community Dharma Leaders training through Spirit Rock Meditation Center.  He currently teaches at New York Insight Meditation Center and leads the Brooklyn People of Color and Allies Meditation bimonthly sit every 2nd and 4th Monday at the Brooklyn Zen Center. For more of Joshua’s work visit http://www.joshuabeealafia.com

Acharya Judith Simmer-Brown

Judith-Simmer-BrownAcharya Judith Simmer-Brown, Ph.D., is a senior dharma teacher in the Shambhala lineage of Chogyam Trungpa and Sakyong Mipham, and a Professor of Religious Studies at Naropa University.  She is author of Dakini’s Warm Breath:  The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism (Shambhala) and Meditation and the Classroom:  Contemplative Pedagogy for Religious Studies (SUNY).  You can find out more information on her here.

 

Chodo Campbell

393E3C3B-4DE0-4D3B-8164-2843AEF09390Rev. Robert Chodo Campbell, HCC co-founded the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, the first Buddhist organization to offer fully accredited chaplaincy training in America. The organization delivers contemplative approaches to care through education, direct service and meditation practice. In order to bring the work to a broader audience, he co-developed the Foundations in Buddhist Contemplative Care Training Program. Chodo is part of the core faculty for the Buddhist Track in the Master in Pastoral Care and Counseling at NYZCCC’s education partner, New York Theological Seminary. He is Co-Director of Contemplative Care Services for the Department of Integrative Medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center. Chodo is a dynamic, earthy, and visionary leader and teacher. His public programs have introduced thousands to the practices of mindful and compassionate care of the living and dying. 30,000 people listen to his podcasts each year.

His groundbreaking work has been widely featured in the media, including the PBS Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, and in numerous print publications such as the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. He also authored the chapter “The Turning of the Dharma Wheel in Its Many Forms” in the book The Arts of Contemplative Care: Pioneering Voices in Buddhist Chaplaincy and Pastoral Work, Wisdom Publications, 2012. He is a Senior Zen Buddhist monk, Dharma Teacher, and senior chaplain. For more of Chodo’s work visit http://zencare.org/

Michael Carroll

Michael CarrollMichael Carroll is the author of Awake at Work, The Mindful Leader and Fearless at Work and over his 28 year business career has held executive positions with such companies as Shearson Lehman/American Express, Simon & Schuster and The Walt Disney Company. Michael has an active consulting and coaching business with client firms such as Procter & Gamble, Google, AstraZeneca, Starbucks, National Geographic Expeditions, Merck Pharmaceuticals  and others.

Michael has been studying Tibetan Buddhism since 1976, graduated from Buddhist seminary in 1980 and is an authorized teacher in the lineage of the Tibetan meditation master, Chogyam Trungpa.  He has lectured and taught at Wharton Business School, Columbia University, Swarthmore College, Yale University, St. Mary’s University, Kripalu, Cape Cod Institute, Zen Mountain Monastery, Shambhala Mountain Center, Karme Choling, Omega Institute and many other practice centers throughout the US, Canada and Europe.
For more of Michael’s work visit http://awakeatwork.net

Thubten Chodron

thubten chodron reducedVenerable Thubten Chodron attended a meditation course given by Venerable Lama Yeshe and Venerable Zopa Rinpoche in 1975, and subsequently went to Kopan Monastery in Nepal to continue to study and practice Buddha’s teachings. In 1977 she was ordained as a Buddhist nun by Kyabje Ling Rinpoche in Dharamsala, India, and in 1986 she received bhikshuni (full) ordination in Taiwan. For ten years she was resident teacher at Dharma Friendship Foundation in Seattle. Seeing the importance and necessity of a monastery for Westerners training in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, she founded Sravasti Abbey, a Buddhist monastic community in Washington State, USA, and is currently the abbess there.

Her books include Open Heart, Clear Mind; Taming the Mind; Buddhism for Beginners; Working with Anger; Guided Meditations on the Stages of the Path (with CD); Cultivating a Compassionate Heart: The Yoga Method of Chenrezig; and How to Free Your Mind: Tara the Liberator. Two new books just came out: Buddhism: One Teacher, Many Traditions, which is co-authored with H.H. the Dalai Lama, and An Open-Hearted Life: Transformative Methods for Compassionate Living from a Clinical Psychologist and a Buddhist Nun, which is co-authored with Dr. Russell Kolts. For more of her work visit http://thubtenchodron.org

Thubten Chonyi

thubten chonyiVen. Thubten Chonyi has studied Buddhist meditation and philosophy with Ven. Thubten Chodron since 1996 and intensified her training by moving to Sravasti Abbey, an American Buddhist monastery in the Tibetan tradition, in 2007. She ordained as a novice nun the following year and received bhikshuni (full) ordination at Fo Guang Shan temple in Taiwan in 2011. Ven. Chonyi regularly shares the Dharma on behalf of the Abbey, both with local groups and, occasionally, abroad.

Harry Einhorn

Harry Einhorn is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and facilitator based out of New York City. A second-generation American Buddhist, he has studied and practiced for over ten years in the Kagyu, Nyingma, and Shambhala traditions, particularly the teachings of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

You can find our more about Harry on his website http://harryeinhorn.co/  and he’s on Instagram too.

Gaylon Ferguson

gaylon fergusonGaylon Ferguson is a faculty member in both Religious Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies at Naropa University, in Boulder, Colorado. He is an acharya, or senior teacher, in the Shambhala International Buddhist community. After studying meditation and Buddhist philosophy with Tibetan master Chögyam Trungpa in the 1970s and 1980s, Ferguson became a Fulbright Fellow to Nigeria and completed a doctoral degree in cultural anthropology at Stanford University. After several years of teaching cultural anthropology at the University of Washington, he became teacher-in-residence at Karmê Chöling Buddhist Retreat Center, through 2005, when he joined the faculty of Naropa University. Gaylon’s book, Natural Wakefulness, can be found here.

Crystal Gandrud

CrystalGandrudA graduate of Shambhala Seminary and a practicing dharma teaching and meditation instructor. Recent publications include “Yeatsian: Numberless Dreamers”, The Encyclopedia Project, 2014, “Here”, Lost Magazine, and “Idiom: Woodbird Flies Early”, The Encyclopedia Project. Her dissertation on the Vajrayana in British mid-20th century philosophy, “Murdoch: the Mandala Maker”, was presented at Kingston University’s Iris Murdoch Conference (2006), London. At the most recent Murdoch Conference, she performed a multi-media excerpt from a work-in-progress entitled “The Forgotten Man,” inspired by Murdoch’s mid-period philosophical writings. In collaboration with visual artist Nuala Clarke, she has performed her multi-media installation “Fair Shouldered One” (a book which is not a book ) at the &Now Literary Festival, Paris, 2012. In Sligo, Ireland, they installed “Between Spaces”, a Yeats inspired dreamscape at the Hamilton Gallery, (multi-media, 2013). Most recently they were awarded best public art installation for the Find Arts Project (“Woven Found”) in Castlebar, Ireland. Her web installation, “Dream of the Drawing for Everything”, in collaboration with Nuala Clarke, will be live in January 2015. She is currently working on an anti-spiritual memoire entitled “Astonishment: A Litany of the Uncanny.”

Gayle Van Gils

Gayle Van Gils copy 2Gayle has committed her life to the practice and communication of how to uncover and manifest the highest human good. Her caring style as an executive coach and trainer inspires joy, creativity and well-being in her clients’ lives and companies. Gayle is a shastri, a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage, and with an MBA from UCLA, Gayle combines her extensive meditation practice with her business background to help clients integrate mindfulness into their work lives and environment.  Gayle leads contemplative seminars on personal and societal transformation, and as a Google Search Inside Yourself certified teacher, and a Barrett Transformation Tools Consultant, brings the power of neuroscience and research together for optimal results.  Her website is http://www.transformyourculture.com/ .

Diane Musho Hamilton

diane hamiltonDiane Musho Hamilton is an exceptionally gifted mediator, group facilitator, and one of the authentic contemporary spiritual teachers of our time. Combining decades of innovation in conflict resolution with an enthusiasm for life, she knows how to address the challenges of our modern experience with an uncommon spiritual perspective. With extraordinary warmth, depth and insight, she encourages us to consciously evolve beyond old and limited ideas of who we are so that we might discover our own unique expression of wisdom and of compassion in this time.
For more of Diane’s work visit http://www.dianemushohamilton.com/Home.html

Shozan Jack Haubner

D817E2D4-5E24-4CCC-AEDF-33C00FEB81ACShozan Jack Haubner is a Zen monk and author of Zen Confidential: Confessions of a Wayward Monk. He has published essays in Tricycle, Shambhala Sun, The Sun, Utne Reader, BuddhaDharma, Spirituality & Health, the Huffington Post, and other publications. He has earned a Pushcart Prize and has been featured the anthology Best Buddhist Writing.

A former standup comic with a philosophy degree, Haubner spent a decade in Hollywood working as a script analyst and aspiring screenwriter. There, he learned the rudiments of story, character, and plot, which are essential to compelling, narrative-driven writing in any format. Now, living as a full-time Rinzai Zen Buddhist monk for the last decade, he has learned to experience the spiritual path as a career, and he has also learned to see the pitfalls people often fall into when writing about their own spiritual journeys.

Emily Horn

emily hornEmily Horn is a Mindfulness Teacher and serves in the leadership of Buddhist Geeks. From a young age, she’s been moved by the feeling of a sacred interconnectedness to all of life. This feeling has driven her exploration of many wisdom traditions, and inspired intensive meditation practice and rigorous psychological inquiry.  In 2010 Emily was encouraged to teach meditation by Jack Kornfield, co-founder of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and Trudy Goodman, Insight teacher and founder of InsightLA. Her contemplative training continues and she is currently in the Spirit Rock and Insight Meditation Society’s 4 year Retreat Teacher Training.

One of her passions is co-directing Buddhist Geeks–a for benefit organization dedicated to exploring what it means to be a contemplative practitioner in the modern, tech-savvy world. Her view is that activism and community engagement are expressions of contemplative insight and over the years, she’s worked in many environments ( Naropa University, InsightLA, and Sounds True) dedicated to exploring this intersection. She’s also volunteered at the Hospice Care Center of Boulder County supporting patients, clinicians, and families; she’s volunteered with children through the Boys and Girls Club; and she’s managed a mindfulness project in veterans’ hospitals in Los Angeles. For more of her work visit http://www.emilyhorn.com/

Kate Johnson

kate johnsonKate Johnson works where spiritual practice, social action, and creative expression intersect.  She teaches Buddhist meditation at The Interdependence Project (IDP), mindful yoga in NYC public high schools, and works independently with social change agents and communities, facilitating embodied approaches to organizational and leadership development.

Kate completed meditation teacher training at IDP with the encouragement of Ethan Nichtern, and is currently enrolled the Community Dharma Leaders training program at Insight Meditation Society/Spirit Rock Meditation Center, under the wing of Gina Sharpe.  She holds a BFA in Dance from The Alvin Ailey School/Fordham University, and an MA in Performance Studies from NYU.

Brian Otto Kimmel

Brian Otto Kimmel was first introduced to applied Buddhism through reading Being Peace by their teacher Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in 1996. Since lay ordination in Plum Village, France in 2006, Brian facilitates and mentors numerous groups internationally supporting individual and collective transformation around themes of social and Earth justice, multiculturalism and a felt, embodied connection to one’s true home. Author of numerous articles on the art and practice of mindfulness, a chant master, recorded artist, vocalist, pianist, and songwriter, Brian bridges many unique experiences through contemplative practice and performance art. A Somatic Educator, Brian’s offerings as a group facilitator help students of mindfulness and meditation to incorporate stress-reducing, focusing, and nurturing qualities of body and mind into their everyday life. Brian is a Somatic Social Justice Counselor and Dance Movement Therapist, a soon-to-be gradutate of Naropa’s University’s Masters of Arts in Somatic Counseling program. In 2012, Brian was a recipient of Naropa’s Priscilla Inkpen Award for inclusive and compassionate social action, and served as Student Trustee on Naropa’s Board of Trustees in 2014 – 2015. Brian’s most recent publications are titled: Permissive Movement as a Dharma Door and Permissive Movement in Dancing with Dharma an anthology by numerous scholar-practitioners edited by Harrison Blum.

Nick Kranz

nick kranz altShastri Nick Kranz has been a student of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche since 1997. He has developed an approach to cultural transformation with the practice of Social Meditation, and worked with Youth Leadership development in the Shambhala community for the last decade. He brings the wisdom of meditation practice to businesses and organizations with www.mindfulinthemidst.com, He is interested in the intersection of social entrepreneurship, and collaborative right livelihood.

 Judy Lief

judy liefJudy Lief is a student of Ven. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and an experienced teacher in the Tibetan Buddhist and Shambhala traditions. She is the author of Making Friends with Death: A Buddhist Guide to Mortality and teaches regularly on the stages of the Buddhist path, as presented in Trungpa Rinpoche’s three-volume work,The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma, which Judy compiled and edited.

Adreanna Limbach

adreanna limbachFollowing a decade of flirtation with meditation, Adreanna Limbach found her home in sangha at The Interdependence Project, where she completed the year long training immersion, and continues to study, practice and teach with those who inspire her path. She’s taught meditation as a practical tool for clarity and resilience to corporate offices, middle school students, and served as a lead coordinator of the Meditation working group at Occupy Wall Street, bringing daily practice to the volunteers at Zuccotti Park in 2011.

When she’s not on the cushion, she serves as an Executive Coach at The Institute for Compassionate Leadership, a Student Coach at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and coaches women to rally their resources so that they can find more freedom in business and life in her private practice. Come say HI to her at www.AdreannaLimbach.com

Kelly Lindsey

Kelly Lindsey is a Mother, Meditation Teacher, and Mind-Body Therapist. She is also the co-founder of Dakini Meditative, a company created to cultivate and inspire meditation practice and mindful living through community, classes, and custom-crafted meditation cushions. Kelly’s deep love for meditation began over 20 years ago and her practice has been guided by many remarkable spiritual teachers. She feels passionate about helping to facilitate a meditative journey for others and sharing the practice of meditation in an informed and inspired way. Kelly’s warm, open-hearted presence invites students to more deeply explore their own path of awakening. You will find her website here. As well, Kelly is on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Matthew Lyon

matthew lyon smallShastri Matthew Lyon has been a student of Shambhala Buddhism since 1974, and has been teaching in this tradition for over 30 years. He is the former Director of the Burlington, Vermont Shambhala Center, and he served as the longtime Director of the Seattle Shambhala Center as well. In 2010, Matthew was appointed by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, as a Shastri, or senior teacher, in this wisdom tradition, and he has led numerous meditation programs.

He has been in business as financial advisor for 32 years, and is also a musician, a composer, and an astrologer with an active counseling practice in this field.

As a family person, Matthew is married, and has two daughters and 9 grandchildren. He and his wife Thomasa own a meditation retreat center on Whidbey Island, Washington, called Windhorse.

He is currently preparing for the publication of a book entitled “Awakening True Prosperity.” The book explores the journey of meditative warriorship as it relates to our livelihood, our financial life, and the realization of inner and outer wealth.

Fleet Maull

f maull reducedFleet Maull is an author, consultant, trainer and executive coach who facilitates deep transformation for individuals and organizations through his philosophy and program of Radical Responsibility™. He is a tireless and dedicated servant leader working for positive social transformation as a meditation teacher, consultant/trainer, social entrepreneur, peacemaker and end-of-life care educator. He is an empowered senior teacher in two meditation traditions, a holder of the Way of Council, and a certified trainer with Partners in Leadership, New Line Consulting, and Peacemaker Institute.

He was a member of the Naropa University faculty from 1995 – 2009, teaching classes in Buddhist psychology, engaged Buddhism, meditation, environmental studies, and contemplative social action and peacemaking.  He guest lectures annually at Harvard University and is a frequent keynote speaker and panelist at national and international conferences. He has been interviewed widely in the television, radio and print media, including interviews on the nationally syndicated public radio programs, NPR’s Fresh Air and E-Town. For more of Fleet’s work visit http://fleetmaull.com/

Joseph Mauricio

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Joseph is a Life Coach, Senior Meditation Instructor and Teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition. He currently works at MNDFL Meditation Studios in Greenwich Village and is the leader of Dharmajunkies, a conscious compassionate community in the East Village. He teaches at studios, schools and centers in Baltimore and DC.
For more of Joe’s work visit http://www.josephmauricio.com

 

Craig Mollins

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERACraig began his journey with meditation in 1980 when he was 18 years old. He met and studied with the Venerable Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and for the past thirty years has been a student of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. Craig in an active meditation instructor and teacher in the Shambhala tradition. For twenty years Craig has been a practitioner of Rolf Structural Integration, and over the past five has been offering workshops in his own brand of body work that merges mindfulness, Shambhala principles, and the teachings of Dr. Ida P. Rolf.

Craig’s challenge and strength has been a lifelong journey with Tourette Syndrome. His experience of having Tourette’s is that it gives him tremendous amounts of energy, as well a significant degree of struggle from trying to contain the physical and vocal twitches. Being a meditator with Tourette Syndrome has given Craig some insight into working with intensity and anxiety, which he offers up in his teaching style.

Ethan Nichtern

Ethan Nichtern_Color_Doron_Gild small cropEthan Nichtern is a senior teacher in the Shambhala tradition. He is the author of The Road Home: A Contemporary Exploration of the Buddhist Path (FSG Books, North Point, 2015) and One City: A Declaration of Interdependence (Wisdom Publications, 2007). He is also the founder of The Interdependence Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to secular Buddhist study and Transformational Activism. Nichtern has taught meditation and Buddhist studies classes and retreats across the United States since 2002.

Lama Rod Owens

lama rod owensLama Rod Owens is a graduate of the traditional 3 Year Retreat program at Kagyu Thubten Choling Monastery where he received his teaching authorization from his root teacher, The Venerable Lama Norlha Rinpoche. He is currently a resident teacher with Natural Dharma Fellowship in Cambridge, MA and is pursuing his graduate studies in Buddhism at Harvard Divinity School. He has served as the Lama and Program Director of Kagyu DC, a Tibetan Buddhist Dharma Center and community in Washington, D.C. Lama Rod specializes in applying the teachings of Mahamudra meditation in exploring racial and gender constructs, healing woundedness from trauma and other violence, as well as integrating spirituality and sexuality. Lama Rod is also a practicing reiki master.

Koshin Paley

koshin paleyDr. Koshin Paley Ellison, MFA, LMSW, DMIN, co-founded the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, the first Buddhist organization to offer fully accredited ACPE clinical chaplaincy training in America and the organization delivers contemplative approaches to care through education, direct service and meditation practice. Koshin is the Director the Zen Center’s Certificates in Contemplative Studies. In order to bring the work to a broader audience, he co-developed the Foundations in Buddhist Contemplative Care Training Program.

He teaches in the University of Arizona Medical School’s Center for Integrative Medicine’s Integrative Medicine Fellowship. Koshin is the Academic Advisor for the Buddhist students in the Master in Pastoral Care and Counseling at NYZCCC’s education partner, New York Theological Seminary. He is the Co-Director of Contemplative Care Services for the Department of Integrative Medicine, and serves as the Chaplaincy Supervisor for the Pain and Palliative Care Department at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Medical Center where he also serves on the Medical Ethics Committee.

Koshin is a dynamic, original, and visionary leader and teacher. His public programs have introduced thousands to the practices of mindful and compassionate care of the living and dying. 30,000 people listen to his podcasts each year. His groundbreaking work has been widely featured in the media, including the PBS Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, and in numerous print publications such as the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. He is the co-author of the chapter “Rituals and Resilience,” in the book, Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience, Routledge, 2009. He also authored the chapter “The Jeweled Net: What Dogen and the Avatamsaka Sutra Can Offer Us as Spiritual Caregivers,” in the book The Arts of Contemplative Care: Pioneering Voices in Buddhist Chaplaincy and Pastoral Work, Wisdom Publications, 2012. Koshin is also an editor of the forthcoming, Awake at the Bedside: Contemplative Palliative and End of Life Care, Wisdom Publications, 2016. He is a Senior Zen Monk, Dharma Teacher and student, ACPE Supervisor and Jungian psychotherapist. You can learn more at http://zencare.org/

Ericka Phillips

Ericka Phillips is a meditator, yoga instructor, writer, and development consultant. Her journey as a meditator began as a teenager when her father introduced her to yoga and meditation as spiritual practice and tools for health and wellbeing. Ericka began her formal Buddhist meditation studies in 2000. In 2010 she completed a 300 hour yoga teacher training with Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman at Yoga Shanti where she continued to assist as a mentor. Inspired by the Buddhist teachings on mindfulness-awareness, and the strength and compassion of all her teachers, her meditation-based asana classes explore true liberation through the interdependence of body & mind. She studied creative writing and social justice movements at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, and Creative Writing at Columbia University. Ericka is the former Executive Director of the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York.

Thupten Phuntsok

Born in Haiti, Thupten Phuntsok (Irnst Norgaisse) came to New York with his two sisters when he was nine years old and was ordained as a novice monk by Sermey Khensur Lobsang Tharchin Rinpoche in 1993. He received his Full Ordination (Gelong) the following year. Phuntsok has been a formal student of Buddhism for over 30 years. He started his formal Buddhist education under the guidance of Kyongla Rato Rinpoche, the tenth reincarnation of the Kyongla line and eight years later he met his main teacher, the late Sermey Kensur Rinpoche Geshe Lobsang Tharchin. He studied all the stages of the path under the direct guidance of Sermey Kensur Rinpoche Geshe Lobsang Tharchin until his passing in 2004. He has been teaching Buddhist philosophy and meditation for over 20 years. www.phuntsok.org

Susan Piver

SPB_Black copySusan Piver is a Buddhist teacher and the New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including The Hard Questions and the award-winning How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life and  The Wisdom of a Broken Heart. Her eighth book, Start Here Now: An Open-Hearted Guide to the Path and Practice of Meditation will be released in September 2015. Piver has been a student of Buddhism since 1995, graduated from a Buddhist seminary in 2004 and was authorized to teach meditation in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage in 2005.

She teaches workshops and speaks all over the world on meditation, spirituality, communication styles, relationships and creativity. She wrote the relationships column for body + soul magazine, is the meditation expert and contributor at drweil.com, and is a frequent guest on network television, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Today, CNN, and The Tyra Banks Show. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, TIME, Parade, Money, and others.

In 2011, Piver launched The Open Heart Project, an online meditation community with close to 20,000 members who practice together and explore ways to bring spiritual values such as kindness, genuineness and fearlessness to everyday life. This is her website!

Khenpo Gawang Rinpoche

khenpoKhenpo Gawang Rinpoche is the founder and spiritual director of Pema Karpo Meditation Center in Memphis, Tennessee where he lives. He has been a Tibetan Buddhist monk for 30 years and holds a Khenpo degree, the Buddhist equivalent of a PhD, from Namdroling Monastery in South India.

Rinpoche is the author of Your Mind Is Your Teacher (Shambhala Publications). The practice taught in the book consists of contemplations on the Four Seals of the Buddha’s teaching: multiplicity, impermanence, suffering, and emptiness. Khenpo Gawang Rinpoche explains how to investigate each of these topics in a way that helps you recognize your innate wisdom mind, which is your ultimate teacher.

In 2014, working with his co-translator Gerry Wiener, he completed and published, The Excellent Path to Enlightenment by Longchenpa.  It consists of one hundred and forty one separate practices that can be performed on a daily basis. It is a complete practice manual that contains the essential points of the entire Buddhist teachings and is available through Amazon.

He came to America in 2004 at the invitation of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche and Shambhala International and became an American citizen 2011. Khenpo Gawang Rinpoche can be reached at: pemakarpomeditation@gmail.com

Pema Khandro Rinpoche

2013P_PemaKhandro_Ngakpa_900Pema Khandro is a Tibetan Buddhist teacher, scholar and humanitarian, specializing in the philosophy and practice of Tibet’s Buddhist Yogis and their Dzogchen teachings. Ordained in the Nyingma lineage, enthroned as a tulku and trained as an academic, her teachings celebrate the dynamic coalescence of tradition and the modern context. Pema Khandro is the founder of Ngakpa International, the Yogic Medicine Institute and two residential centers. For more information visit www.PemaKhandro.org

Lodro Rinzler

lodro rinzlerLodro Rinzler is a teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage and the best-selling author of five books on meditation including The Buddha Walks into a Bar…, Walk Like a Buddha, The Buddha Walks into the Office, and Sit Like a Buddha. Over the last fourteen years he has taught numerous workshops at meditation centers, businesses, and college campuses throughout North America. Lodro’s columns appear regularly on the Huffington Post, Marie Claire, and elephant journal and he has been featured on WNYC, WBUR, FOX, the CBC, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Fast Company. He is the founder of the Institute for Compassionate Leadership, an authentic leadership training organization, and lives in Brooklyn with his dog Tillie and his cat Justin Bieber. You can connect with him at lodrorinzler.com

Irini Rockwell

irini rockwellFounder of the Five Wisdoms Institute, Irini Rockwell is a Buddhist teacher, meditation instructor, coach, and trainer. Wisdoms@Work, the Institute’s signature training, is in personal and professional development for organizational leaders, health caregivers, educators, artists, and individuals. Natural Brilliance, Leading from Within is a leadership training. Author of Natural Brilliance: A Buddhist System for Uncovering Your Strengths and Letting Them Shine and The Five Wisdom Energies, a Buddhist Way of Understanding Personalities, Emotions and Relationships, Irini has created professional training programs for the National Institute for School Development in the Netherlands, Karuna Training in Germany, Ticino Maitri Group in Switzerland and EastWind Institute in Canada. She served as a faculty member at Naropa University in Boulder Colorado for ten years where she earned her Master’s in Contemplative Psychotherapy and a Certificate in Authentic Leadership. Irini is a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist community and is a long-time student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. She began her career as a dance performer, choreographer and teacher. Irini received a Bachelor of Science in dance from The Juilliard School in New York.

David Rome

david romeDavid Rome is a teacher and writer on applications of contemplative methods in personal, organizational and social change. At the Garrison Institute from 2004 to 2011 he guided development of programs on contemplative methods in K-12 education, trauma treatment, and climate change.  Earlier, he was senior vice president for planning and development at Greyston Foundation, the pioneering Buddhist-inspired inner-city community development group, and president of Schocken Books in New York City.

David is the creator of Mindful Focusing, a training program that brings together Eugene Gendlin’s felt-sense focusing method with Buddhist mindfulness-awareness practices, described in his 2014 book YOUR BODY KNOWS THE ANSWER: Using Your FELT SENSE to Solve Problems, Effect Change, and Liberate Creativity. David began practicing Buddhism in 1971 and served as private secretary to Tibetan contemplative master Chögyam Trungpa. He studied focusing with Gendlin, Ann Weiser Cornell and others and is a senior trainer with the Focusing Institute and Shambhala International. For more of David’s work visit: http://mindfulfocusing.com

Ralph De La Rosa

RalphDeLaRosaRalph De La Rosa is a heart-centered psychotherapist, meditation provocateur, writer, and musician. Ralph began practicing meditation is 1996 within the bhakti yoga tradition and has been a student of Amma (Mata Amritananda Mayi) since 2000. He has studied Buddhism since 2005 and holds vows within the Shambhala lineage of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Ralph began teaching meditation in 2008, is a certified yoga instructor, and has also trained in Breathwork and Reiki. He is a summa cum laude graduate of Fordham University’s Graduate School of Social Services. He has a private personal coaching practice and treats traumatized youth at a community mental health clinic in Harlem in addition to his teaching. Ralph currently resides in Brooklyn, NY with his two ridiculous cats, Emma Goldman and Henry. You can connect with Ralph a number of ways; www.ralphdelarosa.com, www.facebook.com/rebelheartmeditation & www.facebook.com/therapywithralph on Instagram or on Twitter @bodyofbreath

Eve Rosenthal

eve rosenthal

 

Acharya Eve Rosenthal has been a meditator in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition since 1973.  She travels widely to teach on meditation and Shambhala principles.  She lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

You can learn more about Eve and her teachings here.

 
 

Daniel Scharpenburg


Daniel Scharpenburg has been practicing Buddhism for nearly 20 years. He is an independent dharma teacher and Chan Adept living in Kansas City. He runs the Monday Night Zen Group at the Rime Buddhist Center. His teaching style has been compared to the earliest Mahayana teachers and Chan Masters. Daniel has taken Bodhisattva Vows and was transmitted the Caodong Chan lineage of Master Hsu Yun.

Daniel believes in taking Buddhist teachings out into the world, teaching in places where other teachers might not go, such as campgrounds and hippie drum circles. He considers himself a Zen Iconoclast and Radical, in the vein of his personal hero Ikkyu Sojun.

Daniel writes for a few websites including The Tattooed Buddha and Patheos and he has a blog at www.danielscharpenburg.com.

Venerable Thubten Semkye

Thubten SemkyeVen. Semkye was the Abbey’s first lay resident, coming to help Venerable Chodron with the gardens and land management in the spring of 2004. She became the Abbey’s third nun in 2007 and received bhikshuni ordination in Taiwan in 2010. She met Venerable Chodron at the Dharma Friendship Foundation in Seattle in 1996. She took refuge in 1999.

When the land was acquired for the Abbey in 2003, Ven. Semye coordinated volunteers for the initial move-in and early remodeling. A founder of Friends of Sravasti Abbey, she accepted the position of chairperson to provide the Four Requisites for the monastic community. Realizing that was a difficult task to do from 350 miles away, she moved to the Abbey in spring of 2004. Although she didn’t originally see ordination in her future, after the 2006 Chenrezig retreat when she spent half of her meditation time reflecting on death and impermanence, Ven. Semkye realized that ordaining would be the wisest, most compassionate use of her life. Click here for pictures of her ordination.

Ven. Semkye draws on her extensive experience in landscaping and horticulture to manage the Abbey’s forests and gardens. She oversees “Offering Volunteer Service Weekends” during which volunteers help with construction, gardening, and forest stewardship.

Hokai Sobol

Screen Shot 2015-02-03 at 1.01.48 PMHokai Sobol is committed to the formulation of an authentic, no-nonsense spirituality for the 21st century, and has been waving the flag for 20+ years as teacher, publisher, and bridge builder. Teaching with groups and individuals, organizing events and programs, translating and publishing titles from leading edge authors, contributing actively through writings online and offline, he’s been spurring and assisting the emergence and propagation of a non-sectarian, real world, ‘post-eastwest’ Dharma. He lives in Rijeka, Croatia, with friends and partners in Europe, United States and Japan. For more of Hokai’s work visit http://www.hokai.info/

Sokuzan

sokuzanKyoun Sokuzan is a fully transmitted monk in the Soto Zen Buddhist tradition. Sokuzan met Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a preeminent teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, in late 1973 and became a student. In 1974, Sokuzan attended the first session of Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. In 1975, he established the Dharma Study Group of Battle Creek,  Michigan. It offered weekly meetings for meditation and study, as well as monthly nyinthuns, which are all-day retreats. In 1978, Sokuzan became an authorized meditation instructor through Vajradhatu in Boulder and later completed the Vajradhatu Seminary in 1980 at Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada. In 1990, Sokuzan met Kobun Chino Roshi, a Zen meditation master from Japan, and became a student of his, and received lay ordination from Kobun’s brother, the late Hojosama Keibun Otagawa. Sokuzan received full ordination as a priest in the Soto Zen lineage in 2007 and Dharma transmission in March of 2013 from Kuzan Shoho Michael Newhall, Abbot of Jikoji in Los Gatos, California.

His book, A Meditation Primer, is available here and you may sign up for his blog posts here
http://sokukoji.org/

Thubten Tarpa

thubten tarpa

 

Thubten Tarpa is a Dharma practitioner who loves the Buddhist teachings and their transformative power for our lives. She lives at Sravasti Abbey, a Buddhist monastic community, having moved there in 2005 and taking novice monastic ordination in 2006 and full ordination in 2008. Learn more about her here.

 

Kevin Townley

Kevin Townley is a writer and performer. Since 2010 he has been studying in the Shambhala tradition as well as with the SokukoJi Zen Center. He completed the Interdependence Project’s teacher training program in 2012. He is passionate about exploring the interplay of meditation and art-making and encouraging others to bring their own innate humor and insight to their meditation practice. He currently teaches full time at MNDFL.
 
 
 

Marisa Viola

Marisa Viola first stepped onto the path of Buddhism during a solo journey to Thailand in 2008, where she visited temples galore and met many Buddhist practitioners. Struck by the kind, alert and open-heartednature of so many of the Buddhists that she met, she began studying and practicing as soon as she returned to the big bad city. Her first stop was the Shambhala Meditation Center of NY. She studied at The Interdependence Project, took their year-long teacher training program in 2012, and began leading their open sits upon graduation. She has taught caregivers of cancer patients at NYU Hospital, student groups at NYU, and inmates at Rikers Island Prison.

Kate Lila Wheeler

SONY DSCKate Lila Wheeler went to her first Buddhist retreat in 1977, was briefly ordained as a nun in Burma and is supported to teach by Theravadan and Vajrayana mentors.  She’s interested in helping others find their own way via a balance of clear method and joyous relaxation. Kate Lila also writes fiction and has edited two books published in English by her Burmese preceptor, Sayadawgyi U Pandita (who is still teaching at 93!).  She lives in the Boston area with her husband, anthropologist and fellow writer David Guss.  You can find out more about her teaching at her website: http://katewheeler.com/

angel Kyodo williams

angel-kyodo-williamsangel  is regarded as a gifted communicator of the essence of Dharma, the universal truth that leads to freedom. Named “the most intriguing African-American Buddhist in America” by Library Journal, Kyodoshi, as she is affectionately called, is known for her ability to make profound wisdom teaching relevant to everyday life.

angel Kyodo is the “Mahamitra” or great spiritual friend of the New Dharma Community, which has its physical home in Berkeley, CA. She is a maverick within her root tradition of Zen Buddhism, holding an interest in articulating relevant expressions of the essence of zen. Her dharma name, Kyodo, means “way of teaching.” At her priest ordination ceremony, the suffix “-ji” meaning compassion, was added by her beloved preceptor, Paco Genkoji Lugoviña, so that her full dharma name translates to something akin to: Way of Teaching Compassion. While she is humbled and sometimes chagrined by the enormity of practicing this name, she is fully committed to doing just that by any means necessary: in an unflinching, authentic way, not bound by social convention, political correctness, the desire to appeal to student’s favor or for financial gain. Kyodoshi-mitra lives as a full-time dharma teacher, spiritual friend and leader of what is likely one of the most unique, vibrant and diverse transformative practice communities in the nation. For more of angel’s work visit http://transformativechange.org/founder/


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