Archives: Authors

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.

Elizabeth Monson

Lama Liz Monson, PhD, is the Spiritual Co-Director of Natural Dharma Fellowship. She has practiced and taught Tibetan Buddhism for over thirty years. Liz is the author of More Than a Madman: The Divine Words of Drukpa Kunley and Tales of a Mad Yogi: The Life and Wild Wisdom of Drukpa Kunley.

Sarah Chauncey

Sarah Chauncey is a nonfiction writer and editor based on Vancouver Island. To help people who are grieving the loss of their cat, she manages P.S. I Love You More Than Tuna on Facebook and Instagram.

Barbara Rhodes

Barbara Rhodes (Zen Master Soeng Hyang) is the School Zen Master of the Kwan Um School of Zen and a retired hospice nurse.

Daijaku Judith Kinst

Daijaku Judith Kinst is the Noboru and Yaeko Hanyu Professor of Buddhist Chaplaincy at the Institute of Buddhist Studies and the author of Trust, Realization, and the Self in Soto Zen Practice.

Nisha Shah

Nisha R. Shah is the director of programs, trainings, and partnerships at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. She has completed a graduate certificate program in Buddhism and Contemporary Psychology at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley.

GaBrilla Ballard

GaBrilla Ballard is a New Orleans born and bred Interdisciplinary artist, mother, singer/songwriter, social worker and author of The Vibrant Mamafesto, a Self-Care Guide for Mothers. Her written and visual work has been featured in several publications including The Journal for Progressive Human Services, The Duende Literary Journal and ForHarriet.com. For more information on her work, please visit <a href="https://www.gabrillaballard.com">www.gabrillaballard.com</a>

Dan Scott

Vishnu Sridharan

Crystal Johnson

Crystal Johnson is on the Leadership Sangha at East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, where she co-teaches the six-month program White and Awakening in Sangha.

Rima Vesely-Flad

Rima Vesely-Flad, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Religion and Social Justice and the Director of Peace and Justice Studies at Warren Wilson College. She is the author of Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition: The Practice of Stillness in the Movement for Liberation (NYU Press, 2022).