I first encountered Buddhism in 1974, and it blew the doors wide open for me with its profound and practical insights into the mind, suffering, and true happiness. Over time I gravitated to the original teachings of the Buddha, embodied in the Theravadan tradition, for their down-to-earth clarity, and important sources for me have included the teachers of Spirit Rock Meditation Center and the Pali Canon itself. More recently, I've explored grounding the dharma in modern evolutionary neuropsychology - "neurodharma" - recognizing how mind arises dependently upon the body, especially the nervous system as it tries to meet ancient needs for raw survival. I am especially interested in using these approaches to heighten the learning - the cultivation (bhavana) - from beneficial experiences (otherwise often wasted on the brain) to reduce the underlying sense of deficit and disturbance that causes the craving that causes suffering and harm. Overall, I feel amazingly blessed to have the opportunity in this life to ride the dharma stream and share its gifts with others!
Robert K Hall M.D. was a psychiatrist and a lay Buddhist priest. Once a student of Fritz Perls and Ida Rolf, he had been a pioneer in the integration of Gestalt psychology, bodywork, and meditation for many years. Dr. Hall was co-founder of Lomi School in northern California, and led Vipassana meditation retreats at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California, and in Todos Santos, Baja Sur, Mexico where he lived from 2001, offering weekly Dharma talks and guided meditation until his death in 2019.
More and more, the teaching practice takes me into the community where I engage directly with students. My focus right now is on bringing the continuity of the Dharma into the market place. Although retreating is an important form for self-knowledge, I find myself less interested in the immediate results of a retreat and more interested in helping students investigate their relationship to the ups and downs of their everyday life.
Nature, death and spontaneous freedom continually interweave themselves into my teaching. From the forest of Thailand, where I spent several years, I bring a deep awareness of the healing quality of nature into my teachings. Relaxing into our true nature allows us to realize what it means to be a human being. It is here we find a resting point, a counterbalance to the speed and turbulence of our culture.
My work in hospice brings a sense of urgency into my teaching. Working with the theme of death and dying reveals the here and now of life to us, how important it is to open to each loss, change and transition that marks our path. Life is precious. We need to awaken without hesitation.
Many of us crave to be more calm and centered. We know that life has more to offer than this fleeting material world. For each of us, the Dharma offers an immediacy of freedom for which we do not have to strive or wait. In practice, we can learn to relax deeply into the moment and rediscover spontaneous freedom.
A dedicated practitioner of Vipassana (insight) meditation, Roxanne Dault (she, her) has sat many long retreats in Asia and in the West. Roxanne is a Guiding Teacher at True North Insight where she teaches weekly sits and residential retreats. She is involved in different projects to share the Dharma in the West. She has completed the four-year Insight Meditation Society (IMS) Teacher Training. Her teaching is influenced by indigenous spiritual practices, her many travels and her experience in Somatic Experiencing®, a body-mind approach aimed at relieving the symptoms of trauma. Roxanne wants to share her love for the Dharma so that we can all touch freedom in every moment! She speaks French, English and is learning her ancestors' language, Anishinaabemowin. www.roxannedault.ca
Ruth Denison studied in Burma in the early 1960s with the meditation master Sayagi U Ba Khin. She has been teaching since 1973 and is founder of Dhamma Dena, a desert retreat center in Joshua Tree, CA, and The Center for Buddhism in the West in Germany.
