About the Teachers

Gaia House teachers 2009 At Gaia House there are a number of teachers who lead retreats here and who also provide guidance for the organisation in the form of a Teacher Council. Short biographies for them are below:

(Please note that while reasonable care is taken, Gaia House is not responsible for the content of external, linked websites.)

Caroline Jones	Jenny Wilks	Rob Burbea
Catherine McGee	John Peacock	Stephen Batchelor
Christina Feldman	Martine Batchelor	Yanai Postelnik

There are also a number of visiting teachers who come to lead retreats at Gaia House, and their biographies are below:

AJAHN SUCITTO was born in London in 1949. He entered monastic life in Thailand in 1975; taking on the Bhikkhu training in 1976, but since 1978 has been based in Britain. He has been teaching Dhamma since 1980, both in meditation retreats and in talks given regularly in the monasteries. Since 1992 he has been Abbot of Cittaviveka in West Sussex.

AKINCANO M. WEBER is a Swiss Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist. A meditator since 1982, he has practiced for 20 years as a monastic in the Forest monasteries of Thailand and Europe and is interested in early Buddhist texts, contemplative psychology and stillness. He lives in Cologne and teaches Dhamma and meditation internationally. Website:www.akincano.net

ALAN LEWIS has been engaging in spiritual inquiry and meditation practice since the 1970s. He spent 17 years as a Theravadin Buddhist monk and disrobed in December 2000. He now runs a computer business and also a website: Zen Moments, with his partner Vanessa, with whom he built and maintains the current Gaia House website.

BHANTE BODHIDHAMMA started training in Soto Zen in 1977, then in the Mahasi Theravada Tradition with Sayadaws U Rewata Dhamma, U Janaka and U Pandita. In 1986 he ordained, subsequently spending eight years at Kanduboda Mahasi Meditation Centre in Sri Lanka. He has been teaching in England, Ireland and internationally since 1998. From 2001- 2005, he was the Resident Teacher at Gaia House. He founded Satipanya Buddhist Retreat in Wales, a meditation centre devoted to the Mahasi tradition.

BHANTE GUNARATANA has been a Buddhist monk for over 50 years, and is the founder of Bhavana Society in rural West Virginia in the USA. He is the author of a number of books, including Mindfulness in Plain English and his autobiography Journey to Mindfulness.

BRAD RICHECOEUR has been practicing Insight Meditation and Qigong for over 20 years. He is a senior student of Master Zhixing Wang, and brings a meditative inquiry into the nature of health, healing and embodied presence. He is the co-founder of Qigong Southwest and is also a Craniosacral Therapist and a tutor on the Craniosacral Therapy training at the Karuna Institute, Devon.

CAROL WILSON began Insight Meditation in 1971. She has studied with a variety of teachers in Asia and the West and spent time as a Buddhist nun in Thailand. An Insight Meditation Society guiding teacher, she has been offering Vipassana and Metta retreats around the world since 1986, including the Insight Meditation Society's three-month course.

CAROLINE JONES has been practising meditation since 1989. She started teaching in 2006, and now teaches at Gaia House and internationally. She has also covered periods at Gaia House as resident teacher and will do so again in 2013.

CATHERINE McGEE has practised and studied Buddhist meditation with senior teachers from Asia and the West since 1991. She has been teaching Insight Meditation at Gaia House and internationally since 1997. Her teaching emphasises embodied practice and the integration and translation of our deepest understandings into our life. She is also a student and teacher in training of The Diamond Approach of AH Almaas.

CHARLES GENOUD has been a student and practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism in the Gelugpa and then Nyingmapa tradition for over 30 years. He has also sat many Vipassana meditation retreats in Asia and in the West. He teaches meditation and leads workshops in Gesture of Awareness in the USA, Europe, Israel and Brazil.

CHRIS CULLEN works as a mindfulness teacher and psychotherapist. He trained to teach Insight Meditation with Christina Feldman, and also did the Community Dharma Leader training at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California. Chris co-founded the Mindfulness in Schools Project, and runs mindfulness courses for students at Oxford University and for musicians and actors at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He has a Master’s degree in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, and is on the teaching team at the Oxford University Mindfulness Centre.

CHRISTINA FELDMAN is a co-founder of Gaia House and a guiding teacher. She has been leading Insight Meditation retreats worldwide since 1976 and is committed to the personal retreat programme at Gaia House. She is a Guiding Teacher of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. She is the author of a number of books including Woman Awake, Way of Meditation, and co-author of Soul Food. Recent books include Silence and The Buddhist Path to Simplicity.

DAVID LOY is a Zen teacher in the Sanbo Kyodan lineage. His books include Nonduality, Lack and Transcendence, A Buddhist History of the West, The Great Awakening, Money Sex War Karma, and The World Is Made of Stories.

FIONA NUTTALL has been training with the late Dr John Crook and Simon Child since the 1990's, and is a member of the Western Chan Fellowship committee. She has been leading retreats for WCF since 2007.

GAIL AYLWARD Gail Aylward attended her first retreat in Bodhgaya in 1994. Since then as well as bringing up her 2 children, she has lived and worked continuously in meditation centres, and since 2005 is co- founder and director of Moulin de Chaves Meditation Centre in S. W. France. As well as assisting on some of Martin Aylwards retreats, Gail a qualified yoga teacher offers yoga classes at Le Moulin and locally, emphasizing embodied awareness. She has been a student of the Diamond Approach since 2005.

GREGORY KRAMER Ph.D., has been teaching meditation since 1980. He developed the practice of Insight Dialogue and is the Founder and Guiding Teacher of Metta Programs, offering retreats worldwide. He is author of several books including Insight Dialogue - The Interpersonal Path to Freedom and Dharma Contemplation: Meditating Together with Wisdom Texts.

HEATHER MARTIN has been meditating for 40 years, in various traditions. Theravada has been her main practice since 1981 (with some exposure to Dzogchen in the Tibetan tradition, and the teachings of Burmese Sayadaw U Tejaniya more recently). She has been teaching retreats in North America since 2001, mostly in the south west of BC and the Pacific Northwest of the US. She was born and raised in Dorset, although she has lived in Canada (British Columbia) for her adult life. She loves to come to Gaia House to practice regularly. She is a retired midwife and childbirth educator.

HELEN STEPHENSON has practised Hatha Yoga and Insight Meditation since 1979. Initially she was taught by the late Robert van Heckeren and in 1981 she began to study classical yoga with the Indian Yoga teacher Sri S Rajagpalan. She is a certified pilates teacher and lives with her family in an interfaith community in Milton Keynes.

HILARY RICHARDS has been practising in the Chan tradition for more than 20 years. She has trained with Chan Master Sheng-yen in the USA and also with John Crook and Simon Child. She is past Chair of the Western Chan Fellowship and leads retreats for the Fellowship at Maenllwyd in mid Wales.

JAKE DARTINGTON has practised Buddhist meditation since 1995 and started teaching in 2007. He trained as a Dharma teacher with Christina Feldman. He also teaches Religious Studies and Philosophy at Bilborough College, Nottingham.

JEAN WILKINS began her Dharma practice in 1980 with teachers from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, over the intervening years she has also studied with teachers from Gaia House. Between 2003 and 2009 she lived and worked at Upaya Zen Centre, a student of Roshi Joan Halifax, she worked with Roshi establishing an end of life care support program both within the centre and in the community of Santa Fe. During those years she was the co-ordinator of the professional end of life care training program for health care professionals; Compassionate End of Life Care, as well as being a member of the teaching team. For many years Jean offered mindfulness practice in her work in the field of Mental Health.

JENNY WILKS has practised meditation for many years and has an MA in Indian Religions. She has taught on retreats and Dharma gatherings since 2005. She works as a clinical psychologist and teaches mindfulness in healthcare settings.

JITINDRIYA was a Buddhist nun for over 16 years, she took ordination at Amaravati Monastery, in the lineage of the Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah, and Ajahn Sumedho. She has had extensive experience in both solitary retreat and community practice, and has taught both monastics and lay people. She is currently residing at Sunyata Retreat Centre, Ireland, as co-manager and Resident Teacher.

JOHN PEACOCK is both an academic and a Buddhist practitioner of nearly forty years. He was initially trained in the Tibetan Gelugpa tradition in India and subsequently spent time in Sri Lanka studying Theravada. He has lectured in Buddhist Studies at the University of Bristol, and at present he is Associate Director of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre and teaches on the Master of Studies programme in MBCT at Oxford University. He has been teaching meditation for over twenty five years and is a Gaia House guiding teacher.

JOHN TEASDALE is a co-developer of Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy, and taught mindfullness worldwide for more than a decade. He is the co-author of The Mindful Way through Depression and Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy for Depression. He teaches Insight Meditation Retreats internationally.

JON KABAT-ZINN PH.D. is a scientist, writer, and meditation teacher engaged in bringing mindfulness into the mainstream of medicine and society. He is Professor of Medicine Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he was founding Executive Director of the Centre of Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society and founder and former Director of its world-renowned Stress Reduction Clinic. Among many other books, he is author of Coming to our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World through Mindfulness, published in January 2005.

JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN is a co-founder and guiding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society's Retreat Centre and Forest Refuge programmes. He has been teaching Vipassana and Metta Retreats worldwide since 1974 and in 1989 helped establish the Barre Centre for Buddhist Studies. He is the author of A Heart Full of Peace, One Dharma, The Experience of Insight and Insight Meditation.

KEN JONES is a Zen practitioner of thirty years' standing who has led numerous workshops and retreats. He has helped pioneer a socially engaged Buddhism and is an established haiku poet.

KIRSTEN KRATZ has practised Buddhist meditation in Asia and the West since 1993. She started teaching in 2006 and since 2008, teaches at Gaia House. One of her particular passions is exploring how wisdom teachings can foster appropriate responses to the challenges of our time; she teaches retreats with Sanghaseva combining Dharma practice and service in the UK and abroad and is also co-initiator of the Dharma Action Network for Climate Engagement (DANCE).

KITTISARO was a Theravada Buddhist monk for 15 years in the Forest School of Ajahn Chah and also has practiced Chinese Chan and Pure Land for 30 years. He has completed two year-long silent retreats and is co-director of Dharmagiri Hermitage and Outreach in South Africa. He teaches internationally.

LEELA SARTI has been a student of the Buddha's teachings and practices since she was a teenager. In addition to teaching Insight Meditation retreats she also works as a psychotherapist. She lives with her family in Luxembourg and Sweden. She is a student of the Diamond Approach and has also been inspired by the non-dual teachings of Advaita Vedanta.

LEIGH BRASINGTON has been practising meditation since 1985 and is the senior American student of the late Ven. Ayya Khema, who confirmed his practice and requested that he begin teaching. Leigh assisted Ven. Ayya Khema starting in 1994, and has been leading retreats on his own since 1997 in both Europe and North America.

MARK COLEMAN has been practising Buddhist meditation since 1984, primarily within the Vipassana tradition. He has also been influenced by Advaita and Dzogchen teachings. He has taught Vipassana retreats since the late 90s in the USA, UK and India and is now based at Spirit Rock Meditation Centre in California. Mark is also a therapist and wilderness meditation teacher.

MARTIN AYLWARD began practising Dharma at the age of 19, spending several years in Asian Buddhist monasteries and with Himalayan hermits. Martin is Co-Founder and Resident Teacher of Moulin de Chaves Meditation Centre in South West France, and reflecting his interest in engaged Dharma practice, has a new website, and is beginning to offer retreats, called Work Sex Money Dharma. He has been teaching internationally since 1999.

MARTINE BATCHELOR lived in Korea as a Zen nun under the guidance of Master Kusan for ten years. She is the author of Meditation for Life, The Path of Compassion, Women in Korean Zen and Let Go: A Buddhist Guide to Breaking Free of Habits. She is a Gaia House guiding teacher. She teaches meditation retreats worldwide and lives in South West France. Her latest work is The Spirit of the Buddha.

MAURA SILLS is the Founding Director of the Karuna Institute which offers an MA in Core Process Psychotherapy. She became involved in Buddhism in the early seventies and has studied with teachers from the Chan, Tibetan and Theravadin Traditions. Her teacher was Taungpulu Kaba Aye Sayadaw of Upper Burma.

MAX WEIER been practicing Chi Kung and different types of Buddhist meditation in Asia and the West for over twenty years. He leads workshops and retreats in Europe and Southern Africa where he also teaches in prisons.

MOLLY SWAN has been engaging in spiritual inquiry and meditation practice since the 1980s in Asia and the West. Her path has been primarily the teachings and practice of the Buddha. Since 1997 Molly has been teaching Insight Meditation retreats, as well as supporting Dharma groups and individuals. She is a co-founder and guiding teacher of True North Insight Retreat Centre in Canada.

NATTHIKO LINDEBLAD was a Buddhist monk in the Thai forest tradition 1992-2008. He has been teaching internationally since 2001. He is much influenced by the teachings of Ajahn Sumedho, Ajahn Sucitto and Adyashanti.

NOAH LEVINE is a Buddhist meditation teacher, author and counsellor. He was trained to teach by Jack Kornfield of Spirit Rock Meditation Centre. His most recent book is Heart of the Revolution.

NORMAN FELDMAN has been practising Vipassana Meditation since 1971. Since 1986 he has been leading Insight Meditation retreats internationally, leading sutta study classes, and guiding pilgrimages to Buddhist sites in India. Norman is a co-founder and guiding teacher of True North Insight Retreat Centre in Canada.

PABLO DAS is empowered to teach Vipassana meditation and Buddha Dharma by the Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society founder Noah Levine. He teaches regularly at A.T.S. centers in Los Angeles and the US. Professionally, he works as a mindfulness based wellness, nutrition and recovery coach integrating mindfulness practices and Buddhist principles in his counseling work. Pablo is a Buddhism inspired indie-folk (antifolk) musician who tours the US and can be found transforming monotonous Buddhist chants into indie rock retreat hits.

PATRICIA GENOUD-FELDMAN has been practising Buddhist meditation (Vipassana and Dzogchen) in Asia and the West since 1984 and teaching Vipassana internationally since 1997. She is co-founder of the Meditation Center Vimilakirti in Geneva, Switzerland.

PAUL BURROWS has been a student of both Asian and senior western Dharma teachers since 2000. He has practised in ashrams, Buddhist monasteries and retreat centres in the UK, India and Nepal and began leading retreats in the Insight Meditation tradition in 2007. His teachings and practice emphasise connecting with others, and awakening to how we create and are created by the world around us.

PHYLLIS K. HICKS DMin, NCLPC, teaches Insight Dialogue retreats worldwide. She has trained and taught with Gregory Kramer and Metta Programs since 2004. Phyllis is a faculty member for Metta’s Relational Insight Meditation Program and serves on Metta’s Teachers Council. Phyllis is a licensed psychotherapist and minister. For twenty-five years she has brought together eastern and western understandings of psychology and contemplative practice in a clinical setting. She is a guiding teacher for Triangle Insight and teaches Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction at Duke Integrative Medicine. She directs the Pastoral Care and Counseling Institute of Durham, North Carolina, a nonprofit center for counseling and clinical education where she also offers Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy and courses in Interpersonal Mindfulness. Phyllis lives and works in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

REB ANDERSON TENSHIN ROSHI is a lineage holder in the Soto Zen tradition. Ordained as a priest by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in 1970, he served as Abbot of San Francisco Zen Centre's three training centres from 1986 - 1995. He is the author of Warm Smiles from Cold Mountains and Being Upright: Zen Meditation and the Bodhisattva Precepts. He lives at Green Gulch Farm Zen Centre in California where he is a Senior Dharma Teacher.

REV MYFANWY MCCORRY was ordained as a monk in 1983, in the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives, which practices in the Soto Zen tradition. She is currently the resident monk at Dragon Bell Temple, Exeter, which runs as a neighbourhood temple, offering meditation instruction, retreats, spiritual counselling and a daily schedule of meditation.

REV MYO DENIS LAHEY began Zen practice whilst still in high school in 1969, with a zazenkai started by Shunryu Suzuki-roshi in Los Altos, California. After thirteen years of lay practice during undergraduate and graduate university studies in Sanskrit, psychology, computer science and motor mechanics, he undertook full-time residential training at the San Francisco Zen Center's three campuses, receiving clergy ordination in 1986 from Rev. Tenshin Reb Anderson. He was shuso (head monk) at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in 1989, and again at Green Gulch Farm in 1990. He received Dharma Transmission from Rev. Anderson in 1999, and began a tenure as tanto (Prior) at Tassajara that same year. In 2002 he left Tassajara to be resident clergyperson at the Hartford Street Zen Center in San Francisco, where he is currently teaching.

ROB BURBEA has been practising and studying Buddhist meditation and Dharma since 1985 with a variety of teachers in England and in the USA. He has been teaching since 2004 and is currently Resident Teacher at Gaia House and a guiding teacher. He is a co-founder of SanghaSeva, an organisation dedicated to exploring the Dharma through service work internationally, and also co-initiator of the Dharma Action Network for Climate Engagement (DANCE)

RODNEY SMITH has been practising Insight Meditation for over 30 years including several years as a Buddhist monk in Asia. He worked in hospice care in a variety of roles for 16 years, is the founding and guiding teacher for the Seattle Insight Meditation Society, and author of the book, Lessons from the Dying and the forthcoming book, The Urban Buddhist: Awakening Where You Are.

ROGER ASH WHEELER was a Buddhist monk in the Tibetan tradition for nine years. He spent four years practising Vipassana meditation at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. He is a trained homeopath and has been teaching yoga for eight years. He offers workshops in yoga and meditation at the Barefoot Barn, Chagford, Devon where he lives with his wife and daughter.

SHARDA ROGELL is a member of the Teacher Council at Spirit Rock Meditation Centre in California near her home. She began meditating in 1976 and teaching Insight Meditation in 1987 where she brings a strong emphasis to awakening heartfulness. She has also been influenced by the non-dual teachings of both Dzogchen in the Tibetan tradition and HWL Poonja during her many trips to India. She is currently a student of the Diamond Approach with A. H. Almaas.

SIMON CHILD is a medical doctor who has trained for over twenty-five years with the late Dr John Crook and Chan Master Sheng-yen. He is a Dharma heir of Chan Master Sheng-yen since 2000. He is Secretary of the Western Chan Fellowship and leads retreats for the Fellowship at their retreat centre in Wales, and also in Europe and the USA.

SISTER METTA is a Theravadin Buddhist nun of 10 years standing. She took ordination at Amaravati Monastery in England, a community which has its roots in the Thai Forest Tradition. She has been based in England throughout her ordained years but is German by birth. Sister Metta experienced motherhood and family life prior to taking monastic vows.

STEPHEN BATCHELOR studied for eight years under the guidance of Tibetan lamas and completed a three-year Zen training in Korea. A former Buddhist monk, he is the author of Alone with Others, The Faith to Doubt, The Awakening of the West, Buddhism without Beliefs and Verses from the Centre: a Buddhist Vision of the Sublime. He is a Gaia House guiding teacher and co-founder of Sharpham College. He teaches worldwide and lives in South West France. Stephen's Confession of a Buddhist Atheist has recently been published.

TANTO MEIYA WENDER is Head of Practice at Green Gulch Farm Zen Centre, one of three temples comprising the San Francisco Zen Centre. She has practised there since 1972, was ordained as a priest in 1986, and received Dharma transmission in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi from Tenshin Reb Anderson in 2002. She has also trained in traditional Soto Zen forms at Zuioji in Shikoku and the traditional practice of sewing of Buddha's robes (rakusu and okesa).

THANISSARA was a Buddhist nun for 12 years in the Forest School of Ajahn Chah and has an MA in Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy Practice. She is co-facilitator of the Community Dharma Leader Program at Spirit Rock Centre USA and co-director of Dharmagiri Hermitage and Outreach in South Africa. She teaches internationally.

TSOKNYI RINPOCHE, son of the late Dzogchen master Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, was born in Nepal in 1966. At the age of eight he was recognised by the Sixteenth Karmarpa as a reincarnation of Drubwang Tsoknyi, a renowned master of the Drukpa Kagyu and Nyingma traditions. He was brought up by the great master Khamtrul Rinpoche at Tashi Jong monastery in India and now resides at Ngesdon Osel Ling monastery in Kathmandu. Rinpoche has been teaching students around the world since 1991 and is the author of Carefree Dignity.

VINNY FERRARO has been practicing meditation since 1993. He has studied with several renowned spiritual teachers including Jack Kornfield, Ajahn Sumedho and the Dalai Lama. In 1998, he spent a year sitting bedside with the dying through the San Francisco Zen Center Hospice Program. Since 2000 Vinny has led workshops for youth in schools internationally for a non-profit organization called Challenge Day, which led him to facilitate a group of teens and their families for the Oprah Show. He has taught meditation to incarcerated youth and adults and is currently training dharma teachers to do the same for MBA, The Mind Body Awareness Project. He is a Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader and has been teaching the weekly Friday night insight meditation group, Dharma Punx, in San Francisco since 2004.

YANAI POSTELNIK has practised and studied Insight Meditation and Buddha-dharma in Asia and the West for over 20 years and has been teaching internationally since 1992. He is much inspired by the Thai forest tradition and regularly leads courses in the natural world. He lives in Devon, England, is a member of the Gaia House Teacher Council, and also serves Gaia House as a Guiding Teacher.

YVONNE WEIER is from Switzerland and has studied and practised Eastern spirituality, particularly Vipassana meditation since the early 80's. She has been facilitating meditation retreats in Europe and India for many years. Since 1994 she has been residing in India where she is serving her teacher Sri Sarath Babuji as an attendant.

ZOHAR LAVIE has been practicing meditation in different traditions since 1995. This journey has taken her from the meditation cushion into exploring further ways of expressing truth and love and in 2004 she co-founded SanghaSeva. She now spends most of her time facilitating retreats that offer service as a spiritual path around the world. Since 2006 she has been teaching on silent retreats and Dharma gatherings in India, Europe and Israel.

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