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Teachers
In the course of its year-long programme, London Insight Meditation works with a number of leading teachers:
Akincano
Akincano M. Weber (Switzerland) joined monastic life in 1985 and has practised and studied in monasteries in Thailand and Europe for 20 years. Since leaving the ordained community in 2005 he lives in Cologne from where he teaches Dhamma and meditation internationally.
Martin Aylward
Martin Aylward began dharma practice in 1990 aged 19. He spent several years living in practice centres in Asia, before co-founding the Moulin retreat centre in South West France where he lives with his wife and children. He leads retreats and offers teachings worldwide, emphasising a creative and all-inclusive dharma practice that we can bring to wherever and however we are. Martin has been most deeply influenced by different streams of Buddhist teachings, the several years he spent living with a Sadhu hermit in the Himalayas, and by the teachings of the Diamond Approach of A.H. Almaas.
James Baraz
James Baraz has been teaching meditation since 1978 and the Awakening Joy course since 2003. He leads retreats, workshops and classes in the U.S. and abroad and is a founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California.
James is co-author with Shoshana Alexander of ‘Awakening Joy’, a new book based on the course. In addition, James is on the International Advisory Board of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. He lives with his wife in the Bay Area, has two sons and three grandchildren.
Jane Baraz
Jane Baraz is a life coach, founding Board Member of Spirit Rock Meditation Center and Awakening Joy teacher.
Martine Batchelor
Martine lived in Korea as a Zen nun for ten years. She is the author of ‘Meditation for Life’, ‘The Path of Compassion’, ‘Women In Korean Zen’, and ‘Let Go: A Buddhist Guide to Breaking Free of Habits’. She is a member of the Gaia House Teacher Council. She teaches worldwide and lives in South West France. Martine’s most recent publication is ‘The Spirit of the Buddha’.
Stephen Batchelor
Stephen studied for eight years under the guidance of Tibetan lamas and completed a three-year Zen training in Korea. A former Buddhist monk, he is the author of ‘Alone with Others’, ‘The Faith to Doubt’, ‘The Awakening of the West’, ‘Buddhism without Beliefs’, and ‘Living with the Devil’. His most recent publication is ‘Confession of a Buddhist Atheist’. Stephen is a member of the Gaia House Teacher Council and teaches retreats and seminars worldwide. He lives in Southwest France with his wife Martine.
Paul Burrows
Paul Burrows has been a student of both Asian and senior western Dharma teachers since 2000. He has practiced in ashrams, Buddhist monasteries and retreat centres in the UK, India and Nepal and began leading retreats in the Insight Meditation tradition in 2007. His teachings and practice emphasise connecting with others, and awakening to how we create and are created by the world around us.
Bhante Bodhidhamma
Bhante Bodhidhamma began his meditation in the Soto Zen tradition in 1978 and has practised widely in the Theravada tradition, centring on the Mahasi Tradition. In 1986, he ordained. From
June 2001-2005, he was teacher in residence at Gaia House. He founded Satipanya Buddhist Retreat dedicated to the Mahasi Tradition on the borders of Wales in 2007. (http://www.satipanya.org.uk)
Mark Coleman
Mark Coleman has practiced Buddhist meditation since 1984. He is a Spirit Rock Meditation Teacher and has been teaching Insight meditation retreats since 1997. He also leads wilderness meditation retreats from Alaska to Peru, integrating mindfulness meditation with nature. He is author of Awake in the Wild: Mindfulness in Nature as a Path of Self-Discovery. Mark is a psychotherapist, life-coach and mindfulness consultant to corporations. He is an avid outdoor enthusiast and passionate about combining the forces of meditation, silence and nature.
Rob Burbea
Rob Burbea has been practising and studying Buddhist meditation and Dharma since 1985 with teachers in England and the USA. He has been teaching since 2004 and is currently Resident Teacher at Gaia House and a Teacher Council member. He is a co-founder of Sanghaseva, an organisation dedicated to exploring the Dharma through service work.
Chris Cullen
Chris Cullen works as a mindfulness teacher and psychotherapist. He trained to teach Insight Meditation with Christina Feldman, and teaches on retreats at Gaia House in Devon. Chris co-directs the Mindfulness in Schools Project, and runs mindfulness courses for musicians and actors at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London. He is currently studying for a Master’s degree in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy at the University of Oxford
Jake Dartington
Jake Dartington has practised Buddhist meditation since 1995 and trained as a Dharma Teacher with Christina Feldman. He has been teaching meditation retreats at Gaia House and around the UK in 2007. Jake also teaches Religious Studies and Philosophy at Bilborough College in Nottingham. For more information on Jake’s work see: http://www.jakedartington.co.uk
Locana (Dr Elizabeth English)
Locana (Dr. Elizabeth English) has been a practising Buddhist within the Triratna Buddhist Community (formerly Friends of the Western Buddhist Order) for 28 years. She received her Buddhist name, Locana, when she was ordained in 2002–the same year that her doctoral thesis on the tantric deity, Vajrayogini, was published by Wisdom Publications. In 2004, she became an internationally certified trainer in Nonviolent Communication™ (NVC), later in Focusing, and more recently, in Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction. She is currently working on a book which combines and explores these approaches. For the past eight years, Locana has introduced these methods in professional and personal fields, working with communication issues and personal development in a wide range of environments, such as businesses, doctors, the police, as well as with people from many different Buddhist traditions. More information about her work is available on her website: http://www.lifeatwork.co.uk. You can also visit her blog, and/or sign up for regular communication tips, which reflect her dharmic practice of communication.
Christina Feldman
Christina Feldman is a co-founder of Gaia House and is on the Gaia House Teacher Council. She has been leading Insight Meditation retreats worldwide since 1976. She is a guiding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society, Massachusetts. Her books include ‘Woman Awake’ ,’ The Way of Meditation’, ‘Silence’, ‘Compassion’ and ‘The Buddhist Path to Simplicity’.
Vinny Ferraro
VINNY FERRARO has been practicing meditation since 1993. He has studied with several renowned spiritual teachers including Jack Kornfield, Ajahn Sumedho and the Dalai Lama. In 1998, he spent a year sitting bedside with the dying through the San Francisco Zen Center Hospice Program. Since 2000 Vinny has led workshops for youth in schools internationally for a non-profit organization called Challenge Day, which led him to facilitate a group of teens and their families for the Oprah Show. He has taught meditation to incarcerated youth and adults and is currently training dharma teachers to do the same for MBA, The Mind Body Awareness Project. He is a Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader and has been teaching the weekly Friday night insight meditation group, Dharma Punx, in San Francisco since 2004
Joseph Goldstein
Having played a central role in bringing meditation to the West, Joseph Goldstein is one of the world’s most respected Buddhist teachers. He has been teaching worldwide for over 35 years and in 1974 he co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts with Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg and remains its guiding teacher. He is the author of One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism, Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom, The Experience of Insight, and co-author of Seeking the Heart of Wisdom and Insight Meditation: A Correspondence Course.
Kevin Griffin
Kevin Griffin is the author of One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps and A Burning Desire: Dharma God and the Path of Recovery. He is a leader in the mindful recovery movement and a co-founder of the Buddhist Recovery Network. He teaches at treatment centers, spiritual centers, professional conferences, and colleges internationally. He trained as a Community Dharma Leader at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, in Marin County, California.
Rick Hanson
Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom. A summa cum laude graduate of UCLA, he teaches at universities and meditation centers in Europe, Australia, and North America. His work has been featured on the BBC and in Consumer Reports Health, U.S. News and World Report, and other major magazines.
Dr. Hanson’s most recent book is Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, which is published in twelve languages.
An authority on self-directed neuroplasticity, he edits the Wise Brain Bulletin, has a weekly e-newsletter, Just One Thing, and his Your Wise Brain blog is on Huffington Post, Psychology Today, and other major websites. He has several audio programs with Sounds True, and his first book was Mother Nurture: A Mother’s Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships (Penguin, 2002)
Dr. Hanson is currently a trustee of Saybrook University, and a member of the Board of the Tricycle Foundation. He also served on the board of Spirit Rock Meditation Center for nine years.
Caroline Jones
Caroline Jones has been practising meditation for 20 years and teaching for the last three. She is especially interested in exploring ways of bringing the Buddha’s teachings into the nitty gritty of our daily lives. She has led retreats at Gaia House and elsewhere. She has spent two three month periods as resident teacher at Gaia House.
Kittisaro
Kittisaro from Tennessee USA, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford before going to Thailand to ordain with Ajahn Chah in 1976. He was a monk for 15 years and during that time helped found Chithurst Monastery and Devon Vihara in the UK. He also taught extensively during this time and was involved in the training of monks. He disrobed in 1991 and since then has taught internationally, with his wife Thanissara, in the States, Europe, Africa, Canada and Israel. He has studied and practised Chan and Pure Land for 20 years informed by the Chinese school of Master Hua. Kittisaro has completed two one year long retreats and is currently writing in between continuing his teaching engagements.
Gregory Kramer
Gregory is a meditation teacher, author, director of the Metta Foundation and a visiting faculty member of the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies in Massachusetts. He has been teaching Vipassana since 1980, having been trained by Ven. Ananda Maitreya Mahanayaka Thera, Punnaji Maha Thera, and Achan Sobin Namto. He is the co-creator and developer of Insight Dialogue and teaches this practice and Dharma Contemplation worldwide. He holds a PhD in ‘Learning and Change in Human Systems’ and is the author of: INSIGHT DIALOGUE - The Interpersonal Path to Freedom (Shambala). For further
information about Gregory Kramer and Insight Dialogue, see http://www.metta.org.
Noah Levine
Noah Levine, author of Dharma Punx and Against The Stream, is a Buddhist teacher, author and counselor. He is the founding teacher of Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society, with a center in Los Angeles and over 20 affiliated groups around North America. Noah lives in Los Angeles.
Catherine McGee
Catherine McGee has practised and studied Buddhist meditation since 1992. She has been teaching Insight Meditation at Gaia House and internationally since 1997. She is particularly interested in the complete integration and embodiment of insight into our personal lives, and the opening of our personal lives for a depth of insight. Her practice is more recently influenced by the Diamond Approach of A H Almaas.
John Peacock
John Peacock is both an academic and Buddhist practitioner of over thirty years. He initially trained in the Tibetan Gelugpa tradition. Subsequently, he studied Theravada in Sri Lanka. He has been teaching meditation for nearly twenty years. At present, he lectures in Buddhist thought at the University of Bristol, and is the Guiding Teacher of Sharpham College.
Yanai Postelnik
Yanai Postelnik has practised and studied Insight Meditation and Buddha-dharma in Asia and the West for many years. He has been teaching since 1992 and leads retreats world-wide. He lives in Devon, England and is a Guiding Teacher of Gaia House.
Sharon Salzberg
Sharon Salzberg is one of America’s leading spiritual teachers and authors. A practitioner of Buddhist meditation for over thirty years, she is a co-founder of the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and the Insight Meditation Society, and she directs meditation retreats throughout the United States and abroad.
Maura Sills
Maura Sills S.R.O.T., U.K.C.P.reg: Maura first qualified as an Occupational Therapist in 1971. She was Senior Lecturer in Applied Psychiatry and Group Psychotherapy at the London School of Occupational Therapy, and District Head Occupational Therapist at the Middlesex Hospital, London. In America, she worked at Stanford University Medical Centre in the Department for Comprehensive Medicine, and studied at Esalen with Joan Fiore and Dick Price. On her return to Britain, Maura returned to her clinical practice and began offering Trainings in Core Process Psychotherapy. She and Franklyn co-founded the Karuna Institute in 1984. Maura was a founding member of the Association for Accredited Psychospiritual Psychotherapists, and a co-ordinator of the Spiritual Emergency Network UK. Maura offers teachings and retreats internationally.
Maura became involved in Buddhism in London in the early seventies. Her first seven years of Buddhist practice were in the Chan tradition. In the U.S.A. she studied Tibetan Buddhism as a Kum Nye student at the Nyingma Institute, Berkeley. She subsequently met Rina Sircar, a Theravadin teacher of the Burmese Forest tradition, and soon after met her teacher, Taungpulu Kaba Aye Sayadaw.”
Ajahn Sucitto
Ajahn Sucitto was one of the original group of who founded Chithurst Monastery (Cittaviveka) in W.Sussex in 1979. He has also helped to establish other monasteries - Aruna Ratanagiriin Northumberland in 1981, and Amaravati near Hemel Hempstead in 1984. He has been teaching retreats in Britain and overseas since 1981, and has authored Rude Awakenings (Wisdom Pubs) and Turning the wheel of Truth (Shambhala) as well as several books for free distribution. CDs of his teachings are available via http://www.dhammathreads.org or can be downloaded from http://www.dhammatalks.org.uk and http://www.dharmaseed.org. All of his free written material as well as podcasts are available via http://www.forestsangha.org or via http://www.cittaviveka.org the website of Cittaviveka, the monastery where he currently resides.
Thanissara
Thanissara started Buddhist practice in the Burmese school in 1975 and after meeting Ajahn Chah and went on to ordain as Buddhist nun for 12 years. She has facilitated retreats internationally the last 20 years and was a guiding teacher at the Buddhist Retreat Centre, South Africa, for 7 years. With her husband Kittisaro, she established Dharmagiri Hermitage and Outreach, a centre on the border of Lesotho, of which she is currently a director. She is a co-facilitator of Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader Program in the US and has an MA in Buddhist Psychotherapy Practice from Karuna Institute and Middlesex University.
John Teasdale
John Teasdale has been practising Insight Meditation for more than a decade. Since 1992, he has been involved in the development and teaching of clinical applications of mindfulness meditation. He has trained with Christina Feldman and has run mindfulness workshops nationally and internationally. John is a co-author of a number of books, including Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression.
Vajraghanta (Jill Broadbent)
Dr Jill Broadbent has been a practising Buddhist within the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order for 20 years; her Buddhist name within the Order is Vajraghanta. She is an internationally certified trainer in Nonviolent Communication™. With her husband, Richard Broadbent she founded ‘The Centre for Compassionate Communication’ which offers courses to support people in developing compassion within relationship.