La Sarmiento has been practicing Vipassana meditation and has been a member of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington (IMCW) since 1998. La's practice and approach to the Dharma has been influenced greatly by the teachings of Tara Brach, Pema Chodron, Larry Yang, Eric Kolvig, Michele McDonald, Cheri Maples, Joe Weston, and Ruth King. In September 2012, La graduated from the Community Dharma Leadership IV program sponsored by Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, CA.
Since 2005, La has been the guiding teacher/leader of the IMCW Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ) Sangha and the IMCW People of Color Sangha. They* integrate the Kalyana Mitta process and the concepts of Respectful Confrontation and Non-violent Communication into their gatherings to create a sacred space for group wisdom to arise. Between 2011 and 2016, La also co-led the DC Monthly Teen Sangha for youth between 13-19 years of age.
La is a senior retreat/event manager committed to bringing diverse teachers and programs to IMCW and to making the Dharma accessible to all. La has been a lead teacher of mindfulness teen retreats in Virginia through Inward Bound Mindfulness Education since 2011, has co-taught the LGBTIQ Retreat at the Garrison Institute in Garrison, NY since 2014, and has co-taught the Young Adults Retreat at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center since 2014.
Lama Rod Owens is the Guiding Teacher for the Radical Dharma Boston Collective and teaches with Inward Bound Mindfulness Education (iBme) where he is also a faculty member for the organization’s teacher training program. He holds a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School with a focus on the intersection of social change, identity, and spiritual practice. He is a co-author of Radical Dharma, Talking Race, Love, and Liberation, which explores race in the context of American Buddhist communities. He also contributed a chapter on working with anger and difficult emotions in the book Real World Mindfulness for Beginners. He has offered talks, retreats, and workshops at Harvard, Yale, Tufts, NYU, and other universities. His current writing project is an exploration of intersectional masculinity and spirituality.
Lama Tsomo is an American lama, author, and co-founder of the Namchak Foundation and Namchak Retreat Ranch. Born Linda Pritzker, Lama Tsomo followed a path of spiritual inquiry and study that ultimately led to her ordination as one of the few American lamas in Tibetan Buddhism.
Under the tutelage of Tulku Sangak Rinpoche, international holder of the Namchak lineage, Lama Tsomo has done extensive spiritual retreat in the U.S. and abroad and is fluent in Tibetan. Today, she is dedicated to sharing the teachings of the Namchak lineage with Western students, bringing greater happiness and meaning to life through meditation practice, community, and retreat. She is especially passionate about reaching young people and supporting those working for positive social change. Her teaching has inspired American and international students, who appreciate her informal, and often humorous, style.
Larry Yang, a longtime meditator, trained as a psychotherapist, has taught meditation since 1999 and is a core teacher at East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, CA. He has practiced in Southeast Asia and was a Buddhist monk in Thailand.
Booker brings her heart and wisdom to the intersection of Dharma, embodied practice, and activism. She began working with system-involved populations in 2005 and was a senior teacher and Director of Trainings with Lineage Project for 10 years, and facilitated an intervention on Riker's Island from 2009-2011 through NYU. Booker shares her expertise nationally on creating culturally responsive environments and changing the paradigm of self and community care. She has spoken at Mind&Life Institute’s International Symposium, Contemplative Minds in Higher Education, and Mindfulness in Education conferences, as well as at universities across the country. She is a co-founder of the Yoga Service Council at Omega Institute, and the Meditation Working Group of Occupy Wall Street. Booker is a co-author of Best Practices for Yoga in a Criminal Justice Setting, a contributor to Georgetown Law’s Center on Poverty and Inequality’s report on Gender & Trauma, YOGA: The Secret of Life, and Sharon Salzberg's book Happiness at Work. Booker is on faculty with the Engaged Mindfulness Institute and Off the Mat Into the World. She is a graduate of Spirit Rock’s Mindful Yoga and Meditation training (2012), Community Dharma Leaders’ Training (2017), and will complete Spirit Rock’s Teacher Training in 2020.
Kate Lila Wheeler began teaching meditation in the mid-1980s and continues to practice with teachers in Theravada and Tibetan Buddhist lineages. Writing is an important part of her life; she has recently completed a second novel.
Linda Graham, M.F.T., has a full-time private psychotherapy practice in the San Francisco Bay Area and leads trainings nationwide on the emerging integration of relational psychology, mindfulness and neuroscience. She is the author of Bouncing Back: Rewiring Your Brain for Maximum Resilience (New World Library, 2013) and publishes a monthly e-newsletter Healing and Awakening into Aliveness and Wholeness, archived on her website.
Marcy Reynolds, BA is a longtime practitioner of Qigong and Vipassana meditation. She currently teaches Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction at El Camino Hospital, and Qigong Movement at Insight Santa Cruz and other places in the Monterey and San Francisco bay areas.
Margarita Loinaz, M.D. has been a Buddhist practitioner since 1977 in the Tibetan and Theravada traditions with an emphasis on Dzogchen practice for the past 10 years. She is a graduate of the first Community Dharma Leader's program at SRMC where she contributed to the initial stages of the diversity program and taught at the first POC retreat. She also trained in MBSR at the UMass Stress Reduction Clinic and is a student of the Diamond Approach. She is originally from Dominican Republic.
Marisa Handler has practiced Insight Meditation in retreats and daily life for 16 years, and is a writer, singer-songwriter, teacher, and coach. She has taught writing as a tool for healing chronic physical and mental illness, and for deepening our experience of awakening, and has published her writing on her own journey through the dark night. She is the author of the memoir, Loyal to the Sky, which won a Nautilus Gold Award for world-changing books, and her essays, fiction, and poetry have appeared in numerous publications. She teaches Creative Writing at Mills College and Stanford University and workshops at Esalen and CIIS. She is also a committed practitioner of Byron Katie’s The Work, Authentic Movement, and Biodanza.
Marjolei Janssen is originally from the Netherlands. Since 2011 she has been practicing insight meditation intensively in Europe, the US, as well as Myanmar, where she was ordained as a Buddhist nun. Marjolein brings both formal practice and practice in daily life to her teachings. She seeks to offer a practical approach to Buddhist concepts and ideas. Her sharing of the Dharma comes from her wish to contribute to the freedom and happiness of all beings. Marjolein is a graduate of Sati Center’s Buddhist Eco-chaplaincy program. She is currently enrolled in the Insight Retreat Center's Dharma Teacher Training.
Mark Coleman has been engaged in meditation practice since 1981, primarily within the Insight meditation tradition. He has been teaching meditation retreats since 1997. His teaching is also influenced by his studies with Advaita Vedanta and Tibetan teachers in Asia and the West, and through his teacher training with Jack Kornfield. Mark primarily teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California, though he also teaches nationally, in Europe and India.
He leads backpacking retreats, nature-based retreats, and teaches retreats for environmental activists in the wilderness at Vallecitos Mountain Refuge in New Mexico, and at Knoll Farm in Vermont. In the Bay Area, Mark has a counseling practice, where he integrates his studies of psychotherapy and meditative work. He is the author of “Awake in the Wild - Mindfulness in Nature as a path of Self-Discovery." Mark has been an avid hiker, and backpacker for most of his life and spends much of his time in the outdoors. He lives in the woods in Marin County, Northern California.
Mark Nunberg began his Buddhist practice in 1982 and has been teaching meditation since 1990. He co-founded Common Ground Meditation Center in Minneapolis, MN in 1993 and continues to serve as the center’s guiding teacher.
