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.
Lienchi was born into a Buddhist family. She began her path of meditation in 1986 with Thay Thich Nhat Hanh in the Mahayana tradition. In 1994, she met Bhante Khippapanno, his kindness and wisdom inspired her to practice in the Theravada tradition. Since 1998, she has been visiting Asia regularly for monastic training. Lienchi has been ordained 3 times and has attended many retreats ranging from 10 days to 2 years with Bhante Khippapanno, Luang Por Sumedho, Sayadaw U Pandita, Sayadaw U Tejaniya. She is in a four-year Teacher Training Program with Gil Fronsdal and Andrea Fella at IMC California-US.
In 2015, Lienchi left her career as an architect to practice full-time in Burma with her primary teacher, Sayadaw U Tejaniya, for 2 years.
In early 2017, Trudy Goodman-Founder of the InsightLA Meditation Organization invited Lienchi to teach. Both of her teachers: Bhante Khippapanno and Sayadaw U Tejaniya encouraged her to share her understandings and experiences of meditation with other yogis. Since then, Lienchi has been sharing how she knows the mind through a natural and relaxed continuity. Lienchi has a practical, intuitive, and compassionate approach to the development of wisdom through the cultivation of awareness.
Currently, Lienchi is working with a number of meditation centers in the US and providing online help for yogis in many different countries worldwide.
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.
Madeline has loved the Dharma since 1986. She is Co-founder and a Teacher of South Shore Insight. Madeline teaches at Cambridge Insight Meditation Center and at Insight Meditation Society. Madeline teaches retreats for LGBTQ communities at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and Garrison Institute. She also worked at UMASS Medical Center for Mindfulness, Healthcare and Society teaching Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in MA prisons.
I find teaching to be a very deep and powerful "no self" practice. When I connect with others during Dharma talks--in the intimacy of small groups, and while holding meditation practice interviews--I am continually reminded to know, and be, in a place of clarity, spaciousness and immediate presence. Being able to offer students such a place of connection is my greatest pleasure and inspiration, as well as the most appreciated challenge in my teaching practice.
For me, the real fruit of the teaching is seeing the beauty of a gradual, and sometimes sudden, unfolding of a heartmind into its true self; seeing the variety of ways a person's essential, creative energy of being flows into the world.
On one end of the teaching, I am excited and inspired by students who are deeply committed to long-term, intensive practice. On the other end (and of course they're connected), I find that working closely with people at the grass roots level--in a co-creative process of developing and sustaining Dharma practice, study and community opportunitiies on a day-to-day basis--is equally exciting and inspiring.
From the immediacy of presence flows a wisdom that naturally connects us to the way of things. This amazing gift of mindfulness provides us with a spaciousness where we can make appropriate, healthy and creative life choices. Rather than being caught up in our old, conditioned habits, mindfulness provides us with the gift of engagement at its best. This is the Gift of the Dharma that we offer to all beings.
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.
