Matthew Morey has been practicing vipassana meditation since 1995 and has sat residential retreats around the world-Massachusetts, England, India, Thailand, and at Spirit Rock. Matthew has been working with youth since 1990 as a school teacher in New York, Connecticut, and California and as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone. He currently serves on the Spirit Rock Teen Teacher Council and co-teaches the Middle School and Teen Meditation Series. In addition to teaching, Matthew is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a practice in San Francisco. He completed a doctoral degree in East-West Psychology at CIIS, for which his dissertation examined the healing effects of compassionate awareness in both Buddhist practices and existential psychology. Matthew finds vipassana practice enriching and admires the freshness and authenticity youth bring to their practice.
Mayuri Onerheim is a Diamond Approach teacher in the Bay Area, a Canadian chartered accountant and enrolled IRS agent. She has guided individuals and small businesses with their money issues for over 25 years. She has taught a Money Course in Diamond Approach groups throughout the world.
Mei Elliott is a Dharma teacher in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, who practices at the intersection between Zen and Vipassana. Mei began training as a Zen monk at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in 2014, and has spent eight years living at Zen temples and monasteries. During this time she served as the director of San Francisco Zen Center and the guiding instructor for Young Urban Zen. Mei was authorized to teach by James Baraz and is currently a participant in Insight Meditation Center’s Dharma Teacher Training. She now resides at Insight Retreat Center where she serves as Managing Director.
Melanie Waschke has had a Meditation practice since her early twenties. She has been deeply involved in the mindfulness practice taught by Thich Nhath Hanh, living in his retreat centers for over a year as well as doing a lot of long term practice in the Vipassana tradition worldwide. Currently she is part of the teacher training program led by Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein and others. Melanie Waschke is a clinical psychologist, working in Germany. She teaches meditation in English and German.
For over 35 years Michele has been a pioneer in bringing together Zen and Vipassana, Deep Ecology, Social Justice, Non-Violence, Leadership Training, and Personal and Business Development modalities, before such integration was considered possible. She works extensively to create diverse environments and champion high-risk communities. Michele is a high ranking woman Sensei (teacher) in Aikido and Iaido sword, a visual artist, Hypnotist, NLP Transformational Mentor and Coach, and co-founder of Manzanita Village Center in Warner Springs, CA and Five Changes.
Because I've been teaching in Burma the last three years, I've been able to see how mindfulness can be nourished by a culture that supports the ancient liberation teachings and by daily experiences of happiness arising from acts of generosity, morality and renunciation. Thus the practice of Buddhism and the living of Buddhism are woven together in a seamless tapestry.
If there is anything that is most engaging to me now, it is the desire to bring this sublime way of life into our culture in the West.
What began as a deep compassion for the suffering of the existential predicament of human beings deepened as I understood that we need not identify with our experience. It is this understanding that has led me far onto the path of befriending others on their spiritual journey. My greatest inspiration is working with students wherever they are in the moment. We are all capable of so much more than suffering; once we learn how to be mindful, it's only a matter of remembering that it is the purity of intention which frees us. Dismantling the myth that we need to be something other than what we are is so important, because if we can learn to be mindful of exactly where we are, we experience the happiness of peace, which is what we deeply are.
My deepest appreciation is for the joy of the spiritual adventure. The purity of mindfulness, which soothes our sophisticated, intellectual, analytical, and out-of-touch-with-our-bodies mindset, is the moment we remember to pay attention without embellishment, interpretation or judgment. That moment becomes overwhelmingly touching because it brings us what we most wish for, unconditional love and peace. This truth, this purity of intention is what brings us home.
