Retreat Teachers |
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Marvin G. Belzer, PhD, has taught mindfulness meditation for over fifteen years and is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center. For many years he taught a semester-long meditation course in the Department of Philosophy at Bowling Green St. University, where he was a Professor of philosophy. He and Diana Winston were instrumental in developing week-long mindfulness retreats for teens in the mid-1990s. |
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Jessica Morey began practicing meditation at age 14 in the Insight Meditation Society teen retreats. She returned every year for 6 years and then participated for 10 years in an IMS young adult mentoring group. Jessica has attended longer (1-3 month) retreats in Asia and the US and is a founding board member and lead teacher for iBme teen retreats. Before joining iBme, Jessica worked in clean energy and climate policy and finance. She holds a BA in Environmental Engineering from Dartmouth and Masters degrees in Sustainable Development and International Affairs. She is an avid yoga practioner and skier and loves dancing in any form. |
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La Sarmiento has been practicing meditation and has been a member of IMCW since 1998. La’s practice and approach has been influenced greatly by the teachings of Tara Brach, Pema Chodron, Charlotte Joko Beck, Larry Yang, Eric Kolvig, Michele McDonald, Cheri Maples, Joe Weston, and Ruth King. Since 2005, La has been the guiding teacher/leader of the IMCW Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning (LGBTQ) meditation group and the IMCW People of Color meditation group. She integrates concepts of Respectful Confrontation and Non-violent Communication into her gatherings to create a sacred space for group wisdom to arise. La is a senior retreat/event manager committed to bringing diverse teachers and programs to IMCW and to making mindfulness meditation accessible to all. She has been a body/energyworker in private practice since 1992 and teaches mindfulness-based Reiki classes with her life partner Wendy Taylor in Adams Morgan, DC. |
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Tempel Smith has been practicing meditation since 1989, including a year as a fully ordained monk. Tempel launched the West Coast teen retreat program and helped to launch the teen retreats in Virginia. He is a graduate of the teacher-training program at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California and regularly leads teen and young adult retreats in California and Virginia. |
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Joe Klein, LPC, CSAC is the founder of Inward Bound Mindfulness Education (iBme). He has over 20 years experience working with youth as a teacher, counselor and soccer coach. Joe brings playfulness and a whole body experiential integration to his work with young people. He is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Certified Substance Abuse Counselor and a long term practitioner of mindfulness meditation, yoga and Chinese internal martial arts. Joe teaches a graduate level course on mindfulness and SEL for teachers, social workers and counselors at Radford University and also co-leads retreats on “Mindfulness as Self-Care” for helping professionals in Southwest Virginia. |
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Dori Langevin began the study and practice of meditation in 1997 with Tara Brach and the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, where she served on the Teachers Council from 2003-2007. In 2007 she and her husband Ted moved to Spokane Valley, WA, where she now teaches classes and retreats (www.mainstream-mindfulness.com). Dori teaches residential retreats at Spirit Rock Meditation Center (Young Adult Retreat) and Insight Meditation Society (Family Retreat) and completed the centers’ four-year teacher training program in Meditation. She has also taught dozens of retreats elsewhere. She has special interests in the dance between mindfulness, addiction recovery and emotional healing, grounded in the sacred feminine and embodied presence, and integrating creative expression and relationships into retreats. Dori also volunteers at Airway Heights Corrections Center (men’s medium security) teaching a weekly mindfulness meditation class through the Religious Activities Center. |
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Dawn Scott has been practicing meditation and mindfulness since 2008 and now serves as the Family Program Coordinator at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Dawn coordinates classes, daylongs, benefits, and residential mindfulness retreats in which the practice and teachings of mindful awareness are offered in order to support the development of wisdom and compassion for children, teens, whole families, and the wider community. |
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Shelby Leigh discovered mindfulness as a young adult and accredits it to transforming her life. Shelby is fiercely dedicated to helping youth become empowered and at ease in their hearts and minds. She leads a weekly Young Adult Mindfulness group in Portland, Oregon inspiring youth to practice in community and support one another in personal growth. Shelby has a MA in Somatic Psychotherapy from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, California and has a private counseling practice in Portland. Her passions include dance, whitewater kayaking, playing guitar, walking her dog, cooking organic and local food and finding ways to allow life to dance through her in each moment. Shelby is the West Coast Program Manager at iBme. |
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Ellen Tynan creates opportunities for people to experience their true nature through exploration and contemplation in the wild. Ellen is trained in tracking, traditional skills and wilderness awareness from the Roots School in northern Vermont and is a certified Wilderness First Responder (WMI/NOLS). Ellen is also an avid rock climber and practices yoga and a variety of Chinese martial arts, including Tai Chi, Qi gong and Kung Fu.Ellen’s teaching is informed by her own firsthand experiences of awakening in nature, as well as from her work with teachers Jonathan Foust, Alan Chapman, Tara Brach and others. She has been profoundly influenced by the writings of Gary Snyder and Joseph Campbell. Based in Washington, DC, she is the guiding teacher for Wild Presence Meditation and also teaches with the Insight Meditation Community of Washington. |
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Pablo Das is a mindfulness-based nutrition and wellness counselor, and teaches mindfulness meditation in Los Angeles, California, at Against the Stream. He is the founder of the American Food Rebel Network which offers a comprehensive series of workshops, weekly groups, one-on-one counseling and community based wellness events. Pablo centralizes mindfulness practice in all of the work he does. He is a graduate of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (NYC) and was trained in food therapy at the Natural Gourmet Institute (NYC) by Annemarie Colbin. Pablo is also a nationally-distributed musician and volunteers at a suicide helpline for Gay Youth in Los Angeles. |
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Jack Blackfelt is an iBme retreat teacher. Jack has lived a spiritual practice rooted in forgiveness, service and constant self-inquiry for the last 8 years. He has enjoyed a completely uncertified and self-taught meditation life, leading the Washington DC branch of the Dharma Punx meditation fellowship for 2 years, as well as many years experience participating in teen/young peoples’ 12-step recovery groups. Jack has staffed and taught multiple iBme teen retreats, and hopes to continue to bring a mindful P.E. / play aspect to them.” |
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Matthew Brensilver, PhD, is currently a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California at Los Angeles’ School of Medicine and has shared the practice of mindfulness with thousands of people in groups at the University of Southern California (USC), UCLA and within the larger community of mindfulness practitioners over many years. Matthew also holds a Master’s degree in clinical social work and has done psychotherapy with adolescents, adults and groups. Matthew currently teaches about the intersection of mindfulness and psychotherapy at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center. Matthew has been a teacher on the Spirit Rock Teen Retreats since 2008. |
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Sara Schedler has been a staff member and teacher on six teen retreats around the country, working with youth from ages 13 to 20 for over 10 years. In addition to her work at iBme, Sara is a teacher at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center where she offers meditation courses to beginners, young adults and teens. Sara holds a B.A. in Development Studies from Brown University and is a recent graduate of the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center’s Certification in Mindfulness Facilitation. Sara began practicing mindfulness meditation in her late teens and has been inspired ever since to make mindfulness practice the center of her life. |
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JoAnna Harper has been exploring and practicing multiple spiritual, healing and psychological modalities since 1999. Her main focus is on working with youth – at the California Department of Juvenile Justice, with the UCLA and other teen residential retreats, through her bi-weekly children and teen meditation groups, and work with ex-gang members through Homeboy Industries. She also leads adult residential retreats, teaches adult one-on-one sessions, and facilitates A Year to Live practice. Greatly influenced by Thich Nhat Hahn’s peaceful conflict resolution and mindfulness-based traditions, JoAnna’s favorite teaching tools include working in Council, relational mindfulness, and non-violent communication. She is a recent graduate of Noah Levine’s Against the Stream teacher training program, and holds a position on its board. She’s also an Ojai Foundation-trained Council facilitator. She is the grateful mother of CJ and Harris, her main inspirations. She holds a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies. |
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Keri Pederson has been practicing mindfulness meditation since 1998 and teaches at the Seattle Insight Meditation Society, where she facilitates groups and classes and assists on residential retreats. She has also had the opportunity to spend time practicing on longer meditation retreats in the US, Thailand and India. Keri has recently completed a two-year training program that integrates teachings from the traditions of yoga, psychology and mindfulness. |
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Erin Hill is a senior teacher with the Niroga Institute, a non-profit dedicated to promoting wellness through yoga to underserved families, individuals and communities. She currently teaches classes and retreats for youth locally and nationally in addition to teaching youth and adults individually in Berkeley, Calif. A student in the Mindfulness Training for Yoga Teachers program at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California, Erin teaches at iBme teen retreats in Virginia. |
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Michele McDonald co-founded Vipassana Hawai’i in 1984 with Steven Smith. She has taught Insight meditation for thirty years. Beyond her commitment to Vipassana Hawai’i, she teaches extensively throughout the United States, in Canada, Burma, and various locations around the world. Michele has been a quiet pioneer, having being the first woman to teach a formal retreat in Burma, side-by-side with a senior monastic figure, Sayadaw U Lakkhana, Abbot of Kyaswa Monastery. Having worked with a wide range of Asian and Western teachers, Michele is most inspired by her practice with Dipa Ma and Sayadaw U Pandita and more recently in Burma with the Mya Taung Sayadaw. She appreciates teaching at many levels of practice and has enjoyed teaching three-month retreats for experienced students as well as developing meditation retreats for youth. Her style of teaching emphasizes helping individuals find entry points into stillness that are natural for them. She encourages an understanding of the path of insight and a gentle strengthening of mindfulness and concentration so that, ultimately, people can access the peaceful depths of their experience in every moment. Michele is thrilled when students begin to love their practice. |
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Steven Smith co-founded Vipassana Hawai’i in 1984 and in 1995 founded the MettaDana Project for educational and medical projects in Burma. Also in 1995 Steven helped establish the Kyaswa Valley Retreat Center in Burma, headed by Sayadaw U Lakkhana, Abbot of Kyaswa Monastery. This partnership helped usher in the beginnings of Vipassana Hawai’i's approach combining traditional and contemporary teaching styles in the same retreat. He was trained and sanctioned as a teacher by revered monk and meditation master Sayadaw U Pandita. Steven teaches meditation retreats around the world, and assists Burmese refugee communities along the Thai-Burma border. His long term vision for promoting mindfulness is culminating in the beginnings of the Hawai’i Insight Meditation Center (HIMC) on the Big Island of Hawai’i's remote North Kohala coast. |
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Jean Esther, MSW, began her formal mindfulness meditation training in 1975. Jean’s mindfulness teaching is informed by over 31 years of practice as a psychotherapist integrating spiritual inquiry with psychological understanding. Jean is a core teacher for the annual Teen Retreat at IMS, which she has served since 1999. She is a senior teacher at Insight Meditation Center of Pioneer Valley in Easthampton, MA, a Continuing Ed faculty in the Smith College School of Social Work and has a private psychotherapy practice in Northampton, MA. |
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Chas DiCapua started practicing meditation in the Soto Zen tradition in 1989. He sat his first Vipassana retreat at IMS in 1995. Since then he has practiced in both the US and Asia. A recent graduate of the Spirit Rock/IMS Teacher Training Program, Chas is currently the Resident Teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. He also teaches regularly at various sitting groups and centers. |
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Winnie Nazarko has been a student and practitioner of Buddhism since 1981, and was authorized to teach in 1996. She has a background in community organizing and human services leadership, and a special interest in how meditative practices can strengthen human capacity to address social, political and environmental issues. She was the Project Director for Insight Meditation Society’s development of the Forest Refuge, a retreat center for experienced meditators doing extended self-retreat. She completed a year long silent retreat at the Barre, Massachusetts facility in 2004. |
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Matthew Daniell has been practicing mindfulness meditation and yoga for more than 25 years. Matthew has studied meditation in Japan, Burma, and Thailand. Matthew Daniell is the guiding teacher at the Insight Meditation Center in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and teaches mindfulness at Phillips Exeter Academy, where he leads meditation groups for students and faculty. He also teaches nationally. |
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Heather Sundberg began teaching insight meditation in 1999 primarily to youth and families. Heather has been trained to teach insight meditation through the four-year Spirit Rock/Insight Meditation Society Senior Teacher Training Program. She was the Teacher and Director of the Family/Teen Program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center from 2001-2010, and has taught Teen Retreats for a decade. Beginning her own meditation practice in her late teens, for the last twenty years Heather has studied with senior teachers from many cultures and traditions. |
To read about our retreat staff members, please visit our retreat staff page.
