Archives: Authors

Johnny Edward Dean Jr.

Johnny Edward Dean Jr. is a writer and podcast host of "This is Buddhism my Homie", and a practitioner of Nichiren Shu Buddhism who currently resides in Tucson, AZ.

Aaron Stryker is a twenty-three-year-old recent graduate of Wesleyan University, where he studied philosophy. He is a resident at the Ann Arbor Zen Temple and a founder of Dharma Gates, a nonprofit organization dedicated to making intensive meditation practice accessible to young people.

Ravi Mishra

Ravi Baikei Mishra is a Zen student with Zen Mountain Monastery and the author of the upcoming book, Vow of Aliveness. You can read more of his writing on <a href="https://ravimishra.substack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://ravimishra.substack.com/&source=gmail&ust=1731005556466000&usg=AOvVaw327-IPLVVdC7hI0NQOjqQm">his blog on Substack</a>.

Stephen Batchelor

Stephen Batchelor began his Buddhist studies in 1972 in India, received full ordination as a bhikkhu in 1979, and disrobed in 1985, following three years of training in Korean Seon. The author of Buddhism Without Beliefs, he has become the face of the movement to find a secular, modern approach to the dharma; Bodhi College, which he cofounded in 2015, continues that project. He is married to dharma teacher and author Martine Batchelor, whom he met in Korea, where she trained as a Seon nun for ten years.

Pilar Jennings

Pilar Jennings is a psychoanalyst and a teacher of Tibetan Buddhism in the Sakya lineage. She is a visiting lecturer at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University, as well as a faculty member of the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science. She teaches widely on integrating Buddhist modalities with a psychoanalytic approach, examining the impact of racism on children, of narcissism on environmental issues, and more. Her book To Heal a Wounded Heart is a psychoanalytic memoir about her entry into work as a Buddhist clinician.

Ven. Karma Lekshe Tsomo

Ven. Karma Lekshe Tsomo is a Buddhist nun and professor of Buddhist studies at the University of San Diego. She is a founder of Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women and director of Jamyang Foundation, which supports educational programs for Buddhist women and girls.

Christiane Wolf

Christiane Wolf is a physician turned mindfulness and dharma teacher and a senior teacher at InsightLA. She’s the co-author of A Clinician’s Guide to Teaching Mindfulness.

Greater Good

“Greater Good” is a collaboration between Lion’s Roar and the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley. You will find more than fifty science-based practices for a meaningful life at <a href="https://ggia.berkeley.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer">ggia.berkeley.edu</a>

Jane McLaughlin-Dobisz

Jane McLaughlin-Dobisz is the guiding teacher of the Cambridge Zen Center and the author of One Hundred Days of Solitude: Losing Myself and Finding Grace on a Zen Retreat.

Kaira Jewel Lingo

Kaira Jewel Lingo is a Dharma teacher with a lifelong interest in spirituality and social justice. Her work continues the Engaged Buddhism developed by Thich Nhat Hanh, and she draws inspiration from her parents’ lives of service and her dad’s work with Martin Luther King, Jr. After living as an ordained nun for 15 years in Thich Nhat Hanh’s monastic community, Kaira Jewel now teaches internationally in the Zen lineage and the Vipassana tradition, as well as in secular mindfulness, at the intersection of racial, climate and social justice with a focus on activists, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, artists, educators, families, and youth. Based in New York, she offers spiritual mentoring to groups and is author of <a href="https://www.parallax.org/product/we-were-made-for-these-times/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons in Moving through Change, Loss and Disruption</a> and co-author of <a href="https://www.parallax.org/product/healing-our-way-home/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Healing Our Way Home: Black Buddhist Teachings on Ancestors, Joy and Liberation</a> from Parallax Press. Her teachings and writings can be found at <a href="http://www.kairajewel.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.kairajewel.com</a>.

Andy Hoover

Andy Hoover is the director of communications at the ACLU of Pennsylvania and an ordained Buddhist priest at the Blue Mountain Lotus Society in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The views expressed in this piece are his own.

Beverly Sanford

Beverly Sanford is a teacher with the Princeton Buddhist Meditation Group. She has been ordained to teach in the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism by Anam Thubten Rinpoche.

Phil Swinney

Ani Trime

Ven. Bhikshuni Karma Trime Lhamo (1928-2016) was an American-born Tibetan Buddhist nun and the director of the Princeton Buddhist Meditation Group. Ani Trime originally studied with Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. She also had a broad appreciation of various other Buddhist traditions, having studied with Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche and Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche, the Venerable Cham Kusho, and other Tibetan teachers, as well as Theravada teacher Ayya Khema. She was known and loved for her down-to-earth, straightforward Dharma talks, which placed great emphasis on meditation practice and everyday experience, and for her sense of humor and warmth.

Lama Surya Das

Lama Surya Das is the best-selling author of Awakening the Buddha Within and a leading voice in Western Buddhism. The founder of the Dzogchen Center in Cambridge, Mass., his latest book is a children’s book called The Yeti and the Jolly Lama. Tibet's Dalai Lama calls him "the Western Lama."

David Nichtern

David Nichtern is a senior Buddhist teacher, author, meditation guide and Emmy award winning composer and musician. His newest book is <a href="http://davidnichtern.com/creativity-spirituality-making-a-buck/">Creativity, Spirituality, and Making a Buck</a>.

R. Singh

R. Singh is a lawyer and a writer. He has studied Buddhism for over twenty years and graduated with a master’s degree in Politics and International Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies. He lives in Vancouver, Canada.

Rene Rivera

René Rivera is a leader and bridge-builder, working and learning inall the spaces in-between race, gender, and other perceived binaries, as a queer, mixed-race, trans man. René has been a student of the Dharma since 2004 and has been a part of the East Bay Meditation Center (EBMC) Alphabet Sangha since 2008. He has participated in the Commit to Dharma and Practice in Action programs at EBMC and the Community Dharma Leaders program at Spirit Rock. René is a community teacher at EBMC and also offers meditation and mindfulness instruction at other centers such as Spirit Rock Meditation Center, SF Dharma Collective and others with a particular focus on offering the Dharma to QTPOC folx.

Fresh Lev White

Fresh “Lev” White is a lover of life and all beings, who lives to reflect and offer the possibilities of unconditional love and self- compassion through his writing, mindfulness offerings, and Diversity Trainings. A graduate of Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leadership Program, Lev offers Dharma at centers around the SF Bay Area, including his sangha home at the East Bay Meditation Center (EBMC). He is founder of the Bay Area’s first Trans and GQ Mindfulness sangha, and contributor to the following: of Real World Mindfulness for Beginners, Trans Buddhist Anthology, and Trans Bodies; Trans Selves.

Martin Vitorino

Martin Vitorino, Ph.D. is the Director of Programming at InsightLA. He leads guided meditations at InsightLA East Hollywood and facilitates the Mindful Transitions for the Transgender Community event. He is a graduate of InsightLA’s Facilitator Training program and is trained by Courage of Care in Oakland, CA to teach a model that merges sustainable compassion practices with social justice activism. He is passionate about sharing meditation and self-compassion practices with people in the transgender and queer communities.