2023 Teachers
Janet Surrey
Janet Surrey, PhD is an Insight Dialogue Teacher. She teaches Insight Dialogue retreats worldwide and leads a longstanding practice group in the Boston area. Her first meditation teacher was Vimala Thakar . She has practiced in the Insight tradition for over 30 years, and trained as a Community Dharma Leader at Spirit Rock. Since 2007, […]
Cornelia Santschi
Cornelia (Punnya) Santschi is a neuropsychologist and meditation teacher. She is deeply committed to environmental conservation and social justice. At the RWJ Barnabas Health Institute of Neurology in NJ, she has specialized in brain-behavior relationships for over 20 years. Cornelia is a devoted student of Buddhism with a dedicated insight meditation practice since 2000. She […]
Gulwinder “Gullu” Singh
Gulwinder “Gullu” Singh is a corporate real estate attorney who regularly teaches both secular and Buddhist classes, groups and retreats at Insight LA and at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, including Mindful-Based Stress Reduction. He has taught mindfulness at the University of Southern California and has been a guest lecturer on mindfulness at UCLA Law School. […]
Kaira Jewel Lingo
Kaira Jewel Lingo is a Dharma teacher who has a lifelong interest in blending spirituality and meditation with social justice. Having grown up in an ecumenical Christian community where families practiced a new kind of monasticism and worked with the poor, at the age of twenty-five she entered a Buddhist monastery in the Plum Village […]
Lakshmi Nair
Lakshmi Nair: Lakshmi Nair is a yoga educator, engaged in reclaiming the pre-patriarchal, non-hierarchical indigenous resilience and resistance of her ancestral tradition of yoga and creating spaces for herself and others to authentically engage with the practices of yoga for self and collective healing and liberation. In 2014, Lakshmi created a yoga immersion and teacher […]
Gregory Crespo
Gregory Crespo is an Awake in the Wild nature meditation teacher, having trained with Mark Coleman to learn to foster a rich sensitivity and connection to the natural world through mindfulness and contemplative practices. He has led weekend retreats and workshops and finds sharing mindfulness and nature practices with others to be a rewarding and […]
Liz Reynolds
Liz Reynolds (she/her) Originally from east Tennessee, Liz began her meditation practice in 2010 while living and working in the Russian Far East. Her practice has accompanied her through living and working in Russia, Japan, Greece, Germany, several US states and through several Dharma study and leadership programs. In 2020, Liz became a teacher with the […]
Sylvie Rokab
Sylvie is a certified nature-therapy guide, mindfulness teacher in the Vipassana tradition, and an Emmy-nominated filmmaker. By blending these three disciplines, Sylvie offers simple but powerful techniques that help participants find freedom from suffering, to access the healing, wisdom, and wonder that can only be found in mindful relationship with nature. Narrated by Liam Neeson, her […]
Laurie Adams
Laurie Adams was raised among mountains and rivers and lives with a felt sense of the wild sacred that weaves the world. She guides humans on the journey to their own depths, soul home in this shimmering web of the cosmos. She has a passion for nature based, soul-connected and somatically rooted journeys in which […]
Sarah Heffron
Sarah Heffron, LCSW is a dharma teacher, licensed clinical therapist, and eco-chaplain, based in Moab Utah. She has taken refuge in the Buddha-Dharma, Nature, and poetry for over 30 years, with an emphasis on eco-dharma. She is deeply grateful to her primary teacher Susie Harrington, along with the blessings of so many more in the […]
Susie Harrington
Susie Harrington is the guiding teacher for Desert Dharma and Sky Mind Retreats, teaching both in the Southwest and internationally since 2005. She delights in teaching outdoors, knowing that nature nourishes the heart and inspires wisdom. She encourages, through silence and intimate presence, coming home to our embedded natural aliveness and belonging, and the freedom […]
Carla Brennan
Carla Brennan, M.Ed., has trained in the Zen, Insight Meditation and Tibetan Buddhist traditions since 1975 and is an authorized Spirit Rock Teacher. She founded Bloom of the Present Insight Meditation (bloomofthepresent.org) in 2014. Carla also taught Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for 18 years and is a former transpersonal psychotherapist. Currently, she teaches with Jack Kornfield […]
Catherine Marquez
Cat’s indigenous heritage is native to the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado. Her soul’s journey began with answering a subtle call to learn the healing arts. Since then, she has contributed to the healing and education of humanity as a Curandera/healer and teacher. She integrates her training at the Four Winds with shamanic teachings […]
Bridget Blomfield
Bridget Blomfield has had a life-long interest in mysticism, leading her to pursue a PhD in Religious Studies where she focused on Islamic Studies. She has had a forty-year meditation practice and has studied and taught Buddhism and Sufism in the United States, India, Taiwan, Thailand, Morocco and Turkey. Her master’s thesis, “Dance as a […]
Caverly Morgan
Caverly Morgan is a meditation teacher, author, speaker, and nonprofit founder. Her new book, The Heart of Who We Are: Realizing Freedom Together through Sounds True is available here. She is the founder and Lead Contemplative of Peace in Schools—a nonprofit which created the nation's first for-credit mindfulness class in public high schools. She is […]
Shinei Sara Monial & Soten Danney Lynch
Shinei Sara Monial and Soten Danney Lynch are ordained Soto Zen Priests. They lived and practiced full-time at Great Vow Zen Monastery with Chozen and Hogen Bays for a decade (https://zendust.org/). Shinei is a yoga teacher and Soten is a long distance ultra-runner and musician. Together they have been leading annual backpacking meditation retreats in […]
Satya Larrea
Satya discovered yoga and meditation in 1993 out of her need to be happy. She was desperate to heal from the depression and anxiety she felt in her mind/body. She was a work study student at an ashram for many years and while "chopping wood and carrying water" she underwent a rigorous training to teach yoga, starting in 1997. Satya currently owns the Whole Yoga Center […]
Johann Robbins
Johann has been meditating since starting with TM in college in 1974. He was asked by Eric Kolvig to begin teaching in 2008, and completed Community Dharma Leader teacher training at Spirit Rock shortly thereafter. His primary Insight teachers were Eric Kolvig, Joseph Goldstein, and Shinzen Young, and his primary Direct Path teachers were Adyashanti, […]
Jon Aaron
A Dharma and Mindfulness teacher at New York Insight Meditation Center Jon first came across meditation in the 1970s, and then became interested in Insight and Mindfulness practices in the late 1990s, studying mindfulness meditation and Buddhism, which have since become central to his life. A Certified MBSR Teacher and Teacher Trainer, Jon trained in […]
Imtiaz Rangwala
Imtiaz Rangwala has been practicing meditation for ~20 years and is a lay meditation teacher in the lineage of Cold Mountain Zen. He is also one of the founding members of Boulder Ecodharma Sangha. Professionally, he is a Climate Scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder where he provides climate science support to people managing our land, […]
Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish
Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish is a lifelong star gazer, Afrofuturist philosopher, dancing mythologist and storyteller, practicing astrologer, social artist and creative ceremonialist. His current project is to utilize the many outer planetary alignments of the 2020's as occasions to create new holidays and festivals that open spaces for alternative futures and social realities. He serves as […]
Frederic Wiedemann
Frederic is an elder sage ... and renaissance kind-of-guy. He "downloaded" his life/soul mission in his 30's. The essence hasn't changed in these 40 years since: "to explore, embody, and share paradoxical Wholeness." His 50 years of journeying with this mission --and catalyzing others to find theirs — has led him to: founding and directing […]
Joshua Ellis
Josh Ellis is a mindfulness teacher, wilderness guide, and the former Resident Manager of RMERC. He is certified to teach mindfulness through Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach’s Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training Program. He is the founder and lead guide of Maui Mindful Adventures, a group dedicated to practicing mindfulness in motion in nature.
Donna Roe Daniell LCSW
Donna Roe Daniell LCSW brings over 35 years of experience as a family therapist, trauma therapist, Zen and Vipassana meditation practitioner and Ecodharma teacher, MBSR teacher, Certified IFS therapist, Mindful Self Compassion teacher, retreat leader and climate activist. Her unique retreat offers women in major transitions in their lives a mindful path through grief to […]
Jean Leonard
Jean Leonard, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist, dharma teacher, Buddhist Ecochaplain, and certified Mindful Self-Compassion teacher in private practice in Louisville, Colorado. A longtime meditator in the Theravada tradition, she holds the Dharma as a sacred compass that guides her personal and professional life, and is currently a trainee in the Spirit Rock/IMS 4-year teacher […]
Rochelle Calvert
Rochelle Calvert is a licensed clinical psychologist, ecodharma teacher, mindfulness teacher, and somatic experiencing practitioner. She has a devoted love to share the power and healing potential of mindfulness, somatic awareness and nature to heal trauma and to awaken and heal the Earth. She has studied and taught mindfulness for the past 22 years and knows personally […]
Barry Gillespie
Barry Gillespie was introduced to meditation practice in 1978, through the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Ashram. In 2003 he began exploring Theravada Buddhist practice, sitting many long retreats at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA and Spirit Rock in Woodacre, CA. His principal teacher is Guy Armstrong. Barry is an affiliated teacher with the Insight […]
Mark Coleman
Mark Coleman is an inner and outer explorer, who has devotedly studied mindfulness meditation practices for three decades and has taught mindfulness workshops and meditation retreats on six continents for the past twenty years. Mark is a senior meditation teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and cofounder of the Mindfulness Training Institute. Mark is an […]
Kritee (Kanko)
Kritee (dharma name Kanko) is a Climate Scientist, Buddhist Zen priest, Educator & Founding Spiritual teacher of Boundless in Motion. She is an ordained teacher in the Rinzai Zen lineage of Cold Mountain and a co-founder of Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center. She has served as faculty for courses or retreats at the intersection of climate crisis, […]
Carol Kortsch
Carol Kortsch was born in Africa, educated in Canada, and then worked internationally building community in different forms. After 25 years in psychotherapy and group practice at Stonehaven Commons in Radnor, PA., she now offers nature-based retreats from Boulder, Colorado as a Courage & Renewal group facilitator. She is blending the Earth-based practices of Animas […]
David Chernikoff
David Chernikoff is a meditation teacher, spiritual counselor, and life coach who taught psychology and meditation at Naropa University for many years. A student of meditation since 1971, David completed the inaugural Community Dharma Leader Training at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and began teaching Insight Meditation in 1988. His teaching has been influenced by senior teachers from the […]
David Loy
David identifies his spiritual roots as primarily in the Japanese Zen tradition. His Zen practice began in Hawaii in 1971 with Yamada Koun and Robert Aitken, and continued with Koun-roshi in Japan, where he lived for almost twenty years. He was authorized to teach in 1988 and has led retreats and workshops nationally and internationally in […]
Peter Williams
Peter Williams has practiced meditation for 31 years, primarily in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, with much practice in the Tibetan tradition as well. He has done more than 41 months of silent retreat. He has taught insight meditation (mindfulness) since 2003 and has completed the Community Dharma Leader training through Spirit Rock Meditation Center. His […]