TEACHERS

Teachers

Anne Cushman

Anne Cushman is a pioneer in the integration of mindfulness, embodied meditation, and creative expression.

A senior retreat teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, she founded the first multi-year Buddhist meditation training for yoga teachers.

She’s the author of the memoir The Mama Sutra, the novel Enlightenment for Idiots, the mindful yoga book Moving Into Meditation, and the India pilgrimage guide From Here to Nirvana; and her essays on spiritual practice in daily life have appeared in the New York Times, Yoga Journal, O: The Oprah Magazine, Lion’s Roar, Tricycle, and many other publications.

She is a guiding teacher for the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program, which has trained thousands of teachers in more than 70 countries.

She mentors mindfulness practitioners and writers worldwide and leads retreats and classes both in person and online with a focus on creativity, embodiment, connection with nature, and daily life practice.

Denise Ackert

Denise Ackert has been practicing Insight Meditation since 1986, training in the US, India, and Nepal and teaching meditation at the Salida Insight Meditation Community since 2012. Her core teachers include John Travis, Brian Lesage, Susie Harrington, Erin Treat and many other Spirit Rock and IMS teachers. Denise has studied with teachers from other Buddhist lineages including Anam Thubten and Tsoknyi Rinpoche.
Her background as a yoga teacher, body worker, and environmental scientist deeply informs her focus on nature and embodied practice. In addition, she teaches meditation in schools, jails, non-profit organizations, businesses and on the trail. Denise is currently in a Nature Dharma Teacher Training with Susie Harrington, Mark Coleman and Gil Fronsdal.
Denise's website: www.densieackert.com

Eleni Monos

Since falling in love with practice two decades ago, Eleni Monos has spent multiple years in intensive silent retreat. In 2023 she completed over a year of continuous retreat. Eleni is gratefully mentored by Guy Armstrong, Kamala Masters and Susie Harrington. She is a graduate of Spirit Rock’s Advanced Practitioner Program and currently part of an international leadership cohort funded by the Bess Foundation centered on expanding Buddhist teaching in nature. She is a participant in the 2025-2028 Spirit Rock/IMS teacher training. Eleni is trained as a nurse serving a decade in the ICU. She also loves poetry, backpacking and bringing the practice out of doors.

Eleni's instagram: www.instagram.com/elenimia/

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 We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons in Moving through Change, Loss and Disruption and co-author of Healing Our Way Home: Black Buddhist Teachings on Ancestors, Joy and Liberation from Parallax Press.

Her website: www.kairajewel.com

Kirsten Rudestam

Kirsten Rudestam Motivated early on by a deep commitment to environmental and social justice, I approach my teaching, mentoring, and group facilitation from an integrative perspective that emphasizes environmental literacy, social and environmental reconciliation, collaboration and deep listening. My academic training is in the fields of environmental studies and sociology, and my research focuses on issues of water policy, allocation and justice. I have taught undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, University of California, Santa Cruz, and Whitman College, and have designed and lead programs for the Buddhist Eco-Chaplaincy Training Program, Insight Santa Cruz, Wildlands Studies, the Wild Rockies Field Institute, and the Green Fire Collaborative. My inspiration for teaching and for learning is fueled by my love and gratitude for the wild magic of this more-than-human earth. In these precarious times I believe that practices of (re)connection are crucial to maintaining our capacity to face ecological loss and to embrace our inherent interbeing. I am trained as a vision fast guide through the School of Lost Borders, am a facilitator in Joanna Macy’s “Work that Reconnects,” and have been practicing Buddhist meditation since 2001 and teaching contemplative practices since 2006. I am grateful for my mentors in these traditions and much of what I offer weaves together practices inherited from these various lineages. I am also deeply indebted to the wisdom and beauty of this earth that I call home and its wise and humbling teachings. Kirsten's website: www.kirstenrudestam.com

Liz Powell

Liz Powell is a graduate of Nature Dharma Training with Susie Harrington, Mark Coleman and Gil Fronsdal, and will complete 4- year Dharma Teacher Training with Gil Fronsdal and Andrea Fella in April 2025. She also completed Local Dharma Leader Training and Eightfold Path Mentor training with Gil and Andrea, along with Spirit Rock's Advanced Practitioner Program and Dedicated Practitioner Program.

She began practicing in 2004, and has offered teachings at Insight Meditation Center from 2009 to the present day, beginning with dharma offerings for children, parents, and families, and then, from 2014 on, offering courses in Introduction to Mindfulness, the Hindrances, and the Eightfold Path, as well as half-day and daylong retreats. She began teaching weeklong retreats at IRC in 2023. Liz provides weeknight teachings on the Brahma vihara through IMC. In addition, her practice has emphasized the dharma of service to the sangha; she has served as Managing Director of IRC, Board President of IMC and, since 2020, has coordinated individual practice discussion opportunities for IMC/ IRC sangha members with teachers and senior dharma leaders.

She especially enjoys retreat practice and the more-than-human world as profound sources of dharma and healing. Liz is a retired Marriage Family Therapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner who specialized in facilitating healing from complex trauma and anxiety disorders.

Marjolein Janssen

Marjolein Janssen (pronunciation “Mar-yo-line”) has been practicing insight meditation intensively in Europe, the US, as well as Myanmar, where she was ordained as a Buddhist nun.

Marjolein brings practice in daily life, as well as formal practice 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.

She practices and teaches meditation in the insight tradition, also called vipassana. Her teachers are the Burmese monk Sayadaw U Tejaniya, as well as the Western teachers Andrea Fella, Susie Harrington and Gil Fronsdal.

Marjolein has a bachelor’s degree in Social Psychology. Additionally, she is a graduate of the Hakomi Comprehensive Training, and a certified Buddhist Eco-Chaplain. Currently she is training as a Retreat Dharma Teacher with Gil Fronsdal and Andrea Fella. And as a Nature Retreat Teacher with Susie Harrington, Gil Fronsdal and Mark Coleman.

In addition to her passion, sharing the dharma, she also dedicates time to further practice of the Buddhist path.

Marjolein is the Guiding Teacher at the Insight Meditation Community of Richmond, VA.

Marjolein's website: www.brightdharma.org

Mark Coleman

Mark Coleman has trained extensively in the Buddhist tradition, both in the Insight meditation and in the Dzogchen tradition. He is a senior teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and has taught insight meditation retreats since 1997.

Mark is a life-long nature lover and is passionate about guiding people into the beauty of meditation and nature. He has led wilderness nature retreats worldwide for over twenty years. Through his organization Awake in the Wild Mark leads year long nature meditation teacher trainings in the US and Europe.<

Co-founder of the Mindfulness Training Institute Mark also leads year long professional mindfulness teacher trainings in Europe and the US.

He is author of Awake in the Wild – Mindfulness in nature as a path to self-discovery, Make Peace With Your Mind, From Suffering to Peace and his recent book A Field Guide to Nature Meditation.

He lives in Sausalito, Marin and likes nothing more than hiking, biking and kayaking in the outdoors. Mark's website: markcoleman.org

Robin Craig

Robin Craig is a Teacher in The Mind Illuminated tradition, which is rooted in Theravadan and Tibetan Karma Kagyu traditions with lineage to the Venerable Ananda Bodhi. She appreciates the ways in which joy is an integral part of the path to the deep spirituality and interconnection that is ours by nature. Her dharma teaching lineage comes from teachers who have studied in the early Buddhist tradition, as well as teachers in modern Theravada lineages.

Robin is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Faculty of Organic Intelligence. Her understanding of the ways spirituality is shaped by our biology and physiology support an approach to meditation practice that is non-shaming and flexible and brings an emphasis on the joyful exploration and insight that arises from there.

Robin's website: www.findingthewayout.com

Susie Harrington

Susie Harrington teaches meditation nationwide and is the guiding teacher for Desert Dharma, which serves many communities in the Southwest near her home in Moab, Utah. She has trained in the Insight tradition since 1989, and in 2005 was invited into teaching by Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, and Guy Armstrong. She has also received teachings from many others, including Tory Capron, Adyashanti, and Tsoknyi Rinpoche. She often offers retreats outside, believing nature to be a profound teacher, and a gateway to our true self. Her teaching is deeply grounded in the body and often emphasizes the expression of mindfulness in speech and daily life. Susie brings the skills of inquiry, relational dharma, and the psychological/spiritual interface to her teaching, informed by her ongoing study of the Diamond Approach by A.H.Almaas and as a graduate of Hakomi Therapy (a somatic psychotherapy modality). She offers a two-year intensive program, Dharma in Daily Life, where she delights in mentoring the innate qualities of heart and wisdom in everyday practice. Her practice is rooted in periods of long retreat both indoors and outdoors, which offer nourishment and inspiration for her teaching. She was an outdoor professional for over 30 years, including years as a river guide, mountaineering guide, and backcountry ranger, and now finds her greatest delight in sharing her love of the dharma and the natural world.

Susie's website: www.desertdharma.org

Thimo Wittich

Thimo Wittich began practicing meditation and yoga in 2008. He has been studying and practicing with Akincano Marc Weber at Atammaya Cologne since 2010. Between 2018 and 2022 he completed the Committed Practitioner Program and the Teacher Training Program at Bodhi College as well as the Level 1 Training of MBSR Teacher Education at the Mindfulness Center of the Brown School of Public Health in the USA. He is currently participating in the Nature Dharma Training and assists his teachers in retreats and online courses in Germany and the USA.

Growing up in the densely wooded Central Uplands in the heart of Germany, in an area where the Brothers Grimm had already collected and written down their fairy tales, Thimo felt a deep connection to nature since his early childhood. He is now a New York State licensed outdoor guide, loves bushcrafting, hiking, canoeing and snowshoeing.

Yong Oh

Yong Oh is a core meditation teacher at the Durango Dharma Center and for Sacred Mountain Sangha, and is also a visiting teacher for other community centers across North America. He teaches retreats at the Insight Meditation Society, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Big Bear Retreat Center, and Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center. He is a graduate of the 4-year Insight Meditation Society Retreat Teacher Training program, Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s 2-year Community Dharma Leaders program, and the Sacred Mountain Sangha 2-year Dharmapala training, taught by his primary teachers Kittisaro and Thanissara.

Yong is also a retired acupuncturist, is passionate about Nature and Dharma, and has particular interests in devotional expression, supporting caregivers, and offering teachings to communities of color in the Dharma.

Yong's website: www.yongoh.com

Guest Teachers

Jaya Rudgard

Jaya Rudgard began meditating in 1984, and from 1996 to 2005 was ordained as a nun in the Thai forest tradition in England at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery.

She subsequently trained as an Insight Meditation teacher at Spirit Rock in California and Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts.<

She teaches meditation retreats and courses in the UK and internationally. Jaya has extensive experience teaching Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Mindful Self-Compassion and teaches retreats for Mindfulness teachers and teachers in training. She also enjoys practising and teaching qigong.

Jaya's website: www.jayarudgard.co.uk

Facilitators / Guides

Kuan Luo

Kuan Luo (she/her) is a Chinese-American mindfulness and meditation practitioner, teacher and outdoor educator. She believes spiritual awakening and psychological maturity need each other to fully support healing and transformation in this time of unprecedented change. She facilitates the development of awareness and interpersonal skills, and is an apprentice of nature, Dharma and ancestral living skills. She is a graduate of Sati Center’s Buddhist Eco-Chaplaincy program, and completed the Nature Dharma Training with Susie Harrington, Gil Fronsdal, and Mark Coleman