Collaborating Teachers

Anne Cushman

Anushka Ferandopulle

Ayya Santacitta

  • Santacitta Bhikkhuni Theri was born in Austria and did her graduate studies in Cultural Anthropology, focusing on dance, theatre and ritual. She also worked in avant-garde dance theatre as a performer and costume designer. In 1988 she met Ajahn Buddhadasa in southern Thailand, who sparked her interest in Buddhist monastic life. She trained as a nun in England and Asia from 1993 until 2009, primarily in the lineage of Ajahn Chah and has also received teachings in the Shechen lineage of Tibetan Buddhism since 2002.

    Santacitta Bhikkhuni co-founded Aloka Vihara in 2009 and received Bhikkhuni Ordination in 2011. She is committed to Gaia as a living being and resides as senior weaver at Aloka Earth Room, currently located in San Rafael, CA. Ayya Santacitta teaches retreats at Spirit Rock, IMS, Cloud Mountain, Big Bear Retreat Center and more as well as online groups and daylong retreats.

Bita Shooshani

  • Bita is a queer-identified Iranian American therapist and a student of the dharma. She has extensive experience working with members of the LGBTQ+ community, immigrant, international, and communities of color using a strength-based approach in her work as a therapist and educator. The Buddha (wisdom that exists in each of us) Dharma (laws of nature) Sangha (sacred friendships) have been a source of continuous clarity and guidance in navigating these troubled times. Bita is a graduate of the Dedicated Practitioners Program at Spirit Rock and a graduate of the first Commit to Dharma cohort at East Bay Meditation Center. In addition to enjoying music and time in nature, she is also a partner and parent of an energetic toddler.

Carl Scheidenhelm

Dawn Neal

  • Dawn is Guiding Teacher of Insight Santa Cruz, and serves as a faculty member for the Sati Center Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program. She has an MA from the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Theravada Buddhist studies and spiritual care. She is a published scholar and has worked as a professional interfaith chaplain for Stanford Medicine. She has also devoted several years to silent meditation retreats. Her intensive practice in Asia includes temporarily ordaining in Burma in 2009.

Erin Carper

Gayah Imani Gillson

  • Gayah aka Mother Gayah Samahita, is a BIPOC, QTPOC, TwoSpirit International Artist, Healer, Visionary Activist, Lay Monastic, and Spiritual Worker. She is the founder and artistic director of Theater of the Liberated, a performance community in Gowanus, Brooklyn, and soon to launch, 'Artist Temple,' a multi-media online company.

    Gayah's work spans multiple disciplines:

    1. Activism - Social justice, racial equity, community engagement, and empowerment

    2. Spirituality - Meditation, mindfulness, ancestral wisdom, rituals, sutras & healing arts practices

    3. Education - Workshops, retreats & trainings

    4. Art - Interactive, socially conscious, intersectional visibility, enriching, movement & performances

Juliana Sloane

  • Juliana first encountered Buddhism and meditation as a teenager, and was deeply impacted by practice. This led her to academic study of religion and gender, and ultimately, to pursue deeper practice and training in the Dharma. Over the years, Juliana has participated in Buddhist Chaplaincy training with the Sati Center, spent many years teaching with Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Family Program, and founded a weekly meditation group for those who identify as women that is now in its 9th year. Juliana participated in the sixth iteration of Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leader Program and received teaching authorization from Erin Treat. Today, Juliana lives in Santa Fe, NM where she works one-on-one with individuals as a hypnotherapist and teaches with communities including San Francisco Insight, Spirit Rock, Santa Fe Vipassana, and the Durango Dharma Center.

Kate Munding

  • Kate is a Founding Mother and guiding teacher of Assaya Sangha, a women’s insight meditation community. She was a mentee of James Baraz and was granted teaching transmission in the Insight Meditation tradition in 2016 after four years of mentorship through the Spirit Rock/IMS/IRC Teacher Training under the tutelage of teachers such as Jack Kornfield, Phillip Moffitt, and Joseph Goldstein. 

    To name a couple centers, she teaches residential retreats at Spirit Rock and Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center. Fostering spiritual community and creating space for women to dive deep into their Dharma practice is a great passion for Kate. She also loves being a mom to her young son, hiking through the hills, and cooking for her loved ones. She lives with her family in the San Francisco Bay area.

Kevin Griffin

Kirsten Rudestam

Law Schuessler

  • Law (He/ Him) is a mindfulness and meditation practitioner, teacher, and outdoor educator. He believes in the healing power of meditation retreats in nature, and he is dedicated to supporting folx in finding ease in wild spaces.

    He has spent over twenty-five years guiding and teaching wilderness courses for organizations, universities and nonprofits.

    The Green River is one of Lawrence’s most favorite places in the world and he has traveled this section many, many times. He is a graduate of Spirit Rock’s Advanced Practitioner Program, Inward Bound Mindfulness 2 year Teacher Training Program and completed the 2 year Nature Dharma Training with Susie Harrington, Gil Fronsdal, and Mark Coleman. Currently he is in Spirit Rock’s 2 year Community Dharma Leaders program. 

    Lawrence is based in the Mojave desert where he guides wilderness trips, teaches meditation and goes on long walks in the desert washes all over the Mojave. Lawrence is passionate about relational mindfulness, nature, interpersonal healing, queer rights, and social action.

Lev Michael Moses (AKA Fresh!)

  • Lev Michael Moses (aka Fresh!) is a love and compassion activist. He offers mindfulness, meditation, spiritual mentoring, and Belonging workshops as tools for shifting towards more authentic, conscious, and passionate living. They teach and write about how unconditional love and self-compassion are the ultimate gateways to honoring and understanding ourselves and others, thus healing our communities and our planet. Lev is mindfully and spiritually grounded at the East Bay Meditation Center, Spirit Rock, and Kehilla Community Synagogue. Love also offers secular mindfulness and non-secular meditation and talks on Compassion in all corporate, educational, spiritual, and private settings. He credits his ability to reach and connect with diverse communities and audiences to his years growing up in and around various communities in New York, D.C. and San Francisco.
    Pronouns: he/they/love 

Marjolein Janssen

  • Marjolein (pronunciation “Mar-yo-line”) began practicing insight meditation intensively in 2011, in Europe, the US, as well as Myanmar, where she was ordained as a Buddhist nun. She brings both formal practice and practice in daily life to her teachings. Her deep love for the natural world and the Dhamma form the foundations for her teachings. 

Her teachers are Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Andrea Fella and Susie Harrington. Currently she is training as a Retreat Dharma Teacher with Gil Fronsdal and Andrea Fella. And as a Nature Dharma Retreat Teacher with Susie Harrington, Mark Coleman, and Gil Fronsdal. Marjolein is the Guiding Teacher at the Insight Meditation Community of Richmond, VA. She also guides online meditation at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA. And offers (outdoor nature) retreats in the US and Europe.


Mary Paffard

  • Mary has been teaching yoga and training teachers worldwide since 1985. She co-founded Yoga Mendocino, a non profit yoga center and directed their teacher training for 10+ years and has been part of other teacher training faculty in the Bay Area and internationally. She has been a long time Insight meditation practitioner beginning in the early 80s sitting long and short retreats annually since that time.

    Mary completed Spirit Rock’s Dedicated Practitioners Program in 2007 and the Buddhist Ecology Chaplaincy program at the Sati Center in 2024 and has contributed to many Vipassna retreats with Ajahn Amaro, Christina Feldman and Narayan Liebenson, to name a few. She is also part of a cross-cultural exchange with Cuban yogis and meditators.

    Mary lives at Pomo Tierra with her partner and family, blending outdoor life, caring for grandkids, and continuing this meandering, humbling and inspiring path in the yoga, eco and meditation worlds.

Paula Snow

  • Paula is a graduate of the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. Her practice is rooted in traditional Buddhist lineages and extensive training in Asia. Her instruction has both ancient precision and modern accessibility.

    Paula is currently training to teach Dharma & Recovery with Kevin Griffin and has 10 years in recovery. She serves as an International Ambassador to Bhikkhunis actively supporting equality in the global monastic community.

Robin Craig

  • Robin (she/her) is a meditation teacher in The Mind Illuminated tradition and a Nature Dharma teacher who has spent years practicing and teaching Buddhist meditation in outdoor settings.

    She has traveled the Green River multiple times and offers retreats in wilderness environments where silence, simplicity, and the natural world foster continuity of mindfulness and insight.

    Her teaching emphasizes embodied awareness, steadiness of attention, and a gentle, investigative relationship to experience. Informed by her background as a Licensed Professional Counselor and faculty of Organic Intelligence®, Robin integrates an understanding of nervous system resilience with traditional meditation practice, cultivating conditions for ease, stability, and clarity.

    She guides retreats in wild places because sustained practice in close relationship with the natural world deepens presence, reveals interconnection, and supports the natural unfolding of insight both on and off the cushion.

Rochelle Calvert

  • Rochelle, PhD, CMT, SEP, licensed clinical psychologist, certified mindfulness teacher, somatic experiencing practitioner has a devoted love to share the power and healing potential of mindfulness, somatic awareness and nature. She has studied and taught mindfulness for the past 20 years and knows personally the transformational potential. To share the love of these healing practices she has published a book Healing with Nature: Mindfulness and Somatic Practices to Heal from Trauma.

    Dr. Calvert leads courses and retreats in mindfulness, somatic experiencing and Awake in the Wild, nature-based mindfulness. She also facilitates professional trainings in mindfulness for clinicians. She is the director of the Ecotherapy Program at SouthWestern College and New Earth Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is a certified mindfulness teacher with the Mindfulness Teaching Institute, the International Mindfulness Teachers Association and Awake In The Wild organization.

    Rochelle is the founder and clinical director of New Mindful Life, which offers mindfulness, nature-based, and somatic experiencing therapies. She teaches individual meditations with nature that assist in healing from trauma. She supports her clients and takes them into nature with the aid of Bertha Grace, a Sprinter van that serves as a mobile therapy office.

    Rochelle now lives in Taos, New Mexico and has a private practice in both Taos New Mexico and San Diego, California.

Sean Oakes

  • Sean, PhD (he/him, queer, of Spanish/Puerto Rican and Northern European ancestry living on unceded Pomo land in California), teaches Buddhism, Yoga, and somatic practice. He received teaching authorization from Jack Kornfield, wrote his dissertation on extraordinary states in Buddhist meditation and experimental dance, and focuses on the integration of philosophy, somatics, and social justice discourse with the Dharma. He teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, East Bay Meditation Center, Insight Timer, and elsewhere.

Susie Harrington

  • Susie 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.