Archives: Authors
Eileen Ybarra
Eileen Ybarra began studying Theravada Buddhist meditation practices in 2004. Her first meditation teacher was Trudy Goodman. Since 2004, she has also studied with a variety of Dharma teachers through the Against the Stream Meditation Society, Insight Meditation Center of Redwood City, Durango Dharma Center, and Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Her profession is public librarianship, a meaningful practice of service and mindfulness, which she is grateful for. She has also been a mindfulness meditation and dharma instructor since 2009 for various meditation centers such as Against the Stream Meditation Society, Boston Meditation Center, San Francisco Dharma Collective, Insight Meditation Center of the Desert, and InsightLA.
Jill Shepherd
Jill Shepherd began practicing insight meditation in Thailand in 1999, and since that time has lived and worked at several meditation centers and monasteries in the US, Australia, England, and Thailand. She spent seven years on staff at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, Massachusetts, where she participated in several long retreats and Buddhist study programs, as well as offering weekly meditation classes at a nearby prison. She is a graduate of the IMS / Spirit Rock teacher training program in the US under the guidance of Joseph Goldstein and Gil Fronsdal. She lives in Aotearoa / New Zealand, and teaches internationally, offering insight / vipassanā and brahmavihāra retreats as well as ongoing study and practice groups focused on bringing the dharma into daily life. She also leads courses and non-residential workshops exploring the relational practice of Insight Dialogue, as developed by Gregory Kramer and colleagues.
Marlon Barrios Solano
Marlon Barrios Solano combines a diverse range of skills in software engineering, generative AI, deep learning and mindfulness, applying these to his work in digital therapeutics, education, and creative practices. As a certified Vipassana/Mindfulness Meditation Teacher by Spirit Rock and mentored by Stephen Batchelor and Chas DiCapua, Marlon uses the intersection with programming to offer a mindfulness approach that balances traditional practices with a contemporary, art-tech-informed approach. Marlon’s consulting and teaching services extend to guide individuals and organizations in applying mindfulness and AI to a range of domains. His work with Sati-AI, an AI-driven meditation assistant, reflects his ability to apply AI and deep learning to the field of mindfulness, demonstrating the potential of technology in enhancing meditation practices and its transmission. Marlon also leverages his software engineering background to develop digital solutions for embodied presence practices in online environments. While his focus is broad, spanning from digital therapeutics to synthetic cognition and creativity, Marlon maintains a grounded, pragmatic approach to his work, guiding clients and students through the complexities of combining traditional practices with cutting-edge AI technology. Find out more about him <a href="https://linktr.ee/marlonbarriososolano/">here</a>.
Rev. Ryuei Michael McCormick
Ryuei Michael McCormick is a Buddhist priest of the Nichiren Shu, a Mahayana Buddhist lineage established in Japan by Nichiren Daishonin in 1253. In 1997, he became a disciple of Bishop Ryusho Matsuda of the Nichiren Order of North America, receiving full ordination at Kuonji Temple on Mt. Minobu in 2001. He is currently serving as minister to the Nichiren Buddhist Sangha of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Dechen Rochard
Dechen Rochard has a B.A. (Hons) in Philosophy (University of London) and a PhD in Buddhist philosophy (University of Cambridge). She also completed a traditional ten-year study program in Buddhist Philosophy at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics (Dharamsala, India). She is currently working for The Dalai Lama Trust translating texts.
Laura Burges
Laura Burges, a lay entrusted dharma teacher in the Soto Zen tradition, lectures and leads retreats at practice centers in Northern California. She received monastic training at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. A teacher of children for 35 years, she now mentors other teachers and helps bring mindfulness practice into the elementary classroom. Burges co-founded the Sangha in Recovery Program at the San Francisco Zen Center and is the abiding teacher at Lenox House Meditation Group in Oakland. She is the author of The Zen Way of Recovery, Zen for Kids, and Buddhist Stories for Kids.
Rev. Heng Sure
Rev. Heng Sure serves as director of the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery and president of the board of directors of the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association. A composer and performer of Buddhist music, he has released three albums (<em>Paramita</em>, <em>Buddhist Stories for Awakening</em>, and <em>Dharma Radio</em>) and has authored numerous publications including <em>Highway Dharma Letters: Two Buddhist Pilgrims Write to Their Teacher</em> (with Heng Chau).
Ruben Habito
Ruben Habito is the founding teacher of the Maria Kannon Zen Center in Dallas, a theology professor at Southern Methodist University, and a former jesuit.
Sanriki Jaramillo
Sanriki Jaramillo was born in Medellín, Colombia, where he serves as the resident priest at the Zen community Montaña de Silencio, a San Francisco Zen Center branch. Sanriki is also a medical doctor and a University Professor.
Rebecca Bradshaw
Rebecca Bradshaw is a guiding teacher emeritus at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. She lives with her husband and two cats.
Hokuto Daniel Diffin
Hokuto Daniel Diffin Osho is an ordained dharma teacher, president of the board at the Zen Studies Society, a poet, and a physician.
Heather Sanche
Heather Sanche is the author of The Life of the Buddha. In 2007, she took temporary ordination within the Pa-Auk tradition and lived in a forest monastery in Myanmar.
Thomas Calobrisi
Thomas Calobrisi received his PhD in religious studies from the Graduate Theological Union in 2021. He is currently a member of the adjunct faculty at the Institute of Buddhist Studies and an admissions counselor at University of the West. His research focuses on how Buddhist ideas, practices, and artifacts have been recontextualized in the religious and cutlural landscape of 21st century North America.
Robert Stevens
Bob Stevens serves as Chair of the Governing Council of the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York and Secretary of the Buddhist Council of New York. Bob has been a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche since the early 1980s. A management consultant, he lives in New York City with his wife Anna and son Arthur.
Peter Moretzsohn
Peter Moretzsohn is a poet, musician, gardener and Zen practitioner living with his wife in central Vermont. Born in Pennsylvania, he fell in love with both the Dharma and the Green Mountains as a college student, and his life has been oriented toward them ever since. His poetry and prose have been published in the Philadelphia-based Quaker magazine Friends Journal. His work has always revolved around themes of stillness and silence, and a sense of something uncontrived to be found therein. Since 2019 he has been engaged in formal Zen training as a lay student at Zen Mountain Monastery in Mt. Tremper, NY.
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva, a world-renowned environmental thinker, activist, feminist, philosopher of science, writer and science policy advocat, is the founder of Navdanya Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (India) and President of Navdanya International. Trained as a Physicist at the University of Punjab, she completed her Ph.D. on the ‘Hidden Variables and Non-locality in Quantum Theory’ from the University of Western Ontario, Canada. She later shifted to inter-disciplinary research in science, technology and environmental policy, which she carried out at the Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, India. In 1982 she founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE), an independent research institute that addresses the most significant problems of ecology of our times, and two years later, Navdanya (‘nine seeds’) the movement in defense of biodiversity and small farmers. In 2011 she founded Navdanya International in Italy and is Chairman of the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture, co-founded with the then President of the Region of Tuscany. Recipient of many awards, including in 1993 the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’, and named among the top five “Most Important People in Asia” by AsiaWeek in 2001. She is a prolific writer and author of numerous books and serves on the board of the International Forum on Globalization, and member of the executive committee of the World Future Council.
Tami Simon
Tami Simon is the founder and CEO of Sounds True, a multi-media company that disseminates spiritual wisdom.