Archives: Authors
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 <em>A Clinician’s Guide to Teaching Mindfulness.</em>
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 <em>One Hundred Days of Solitude: Losing Myself and Finding Grace on a Zen Retreat</em>.
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"><em>We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons in Moving through Change, Loss and Disruption</em></a> and co-author of <a href="https://www.parallax.org/product/healing-our-way-home/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>Healing Our Way Home: Black Buddhist Teachings on Ancestors, Joy and Liberation</em></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.
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 <em>Awakening the Buddha Within</em> 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 <em>The Yeti and the Jolly Lama</em>. 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>.
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 <em>Real World Mindfulness for Beginners</em>, <em>Trans Buddhist Anthology</em>, and <em>Trans Bodies; Trans Selves</em>.
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 <em>More Than a Madman: The Divine Words of Drukpa Kunley </em>and <em>Tales of a Mad Yogi: The Life and Wild Wisdom of Drukpa Kunley.</em>
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 <em>P.S. I Love You More Than Tuna</em> 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 <em>Trust, Realization, and the Self in Soto Zen Practice</em>.
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.