Still In the City: A 90-Day Meditation Practice Period and Online Course

Angela Dews

Angela Dews found the dharma in 1996 on retreat from journalism, politics and government at Vallecitos Mountain Ranch in New Mexico. She is fictionalizing those experiences in a series of novels set in Harlem. Harlem Hit & Run is the first and is available now. She is a graduate of the fourth Community Dharma Leaders Program at Spirit Rock. She began dedicated practice at Deer Park In California with Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh. Venerable Pannavati Bhikkhuni is her teacher now and she is building community in her Harlem Insight Sangha.

Tuere Sala

Tuere Sala is a Guiding Teacher at Seattle Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock Retreat Center. She is a retired prosecuting attorney who has practiced Vipassana meditation for over 30 years.  Tuere is committed to lay practice and inspired by bringing the Dharma to nontraditional places. She is a strong advocate for practitioners living with high stress, past trauma and difficulties sitting still. Tuere has been teaching since 2010 and has a long history of assisting others in establishing and maintaining a daily practice. Tuere can be contacted at tueresala.org and at https://www.dharmaground.org.

Tracy Cochran

Tracy Cochran is an editor of Parabola magazine. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Boston Review, O: The Oprah Magazine, New York Magazine, Publishers Weekly, Psychology Today, and other publications. Her stories have been included in anthologies including The Best Spiritual Writing series; Writing for Their Lives; and Sacred Voices: Essential Women’s Wisdom Through the Ages. In addition to working in publishing and in the film industry, she is certified as a Community Dharma Leader by the Spirit Rock Meditation Center, teaching mindfulness meditation and mindful writing retreats in the greater New York area.

Walk Opie

Walt Opie was introduced to insight meditation in 1993, but didn’t realize its full life-changing potential until sitting his first two residential retreats at Spirit Rock in 2005. He has a strong interest in early Buddhism and serves as a facilitator for online courses based on the work of Bhikkhu Analayo through the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (BCBS). In addition, he teaches retreats and speaks at insight meditation centers around the country. Walt has also led sitting groups for people in recovery for many years and helps facilitate Buddhist services in a California prison. His most influential teachers include Bhikkhu Analayo, Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Joseph Goldstein, Gil Fronsdal, and Guy Armstrong. He is a graduate of the 2017-2021 IMS Teacher Training Program. Walt received an MFA in Writing from California College of the Arts. His writing appears in the book collection Still, In the City: Creating Peace of Mind in the Midst of Urban Chaos edited by Angela Dews (Skyhorse Publishing, 2018). His website is www.waltopie.com.

Rosemary Blake

Rosemary Blake has been a meditator for more than 30 years. She was introduced to the dharma in 2003 at the first Insight Meditation Society POC retreat, an event she attended annually for the next ten years. Her experience in 2013 of IMS’ three-month retreat both deepened her practice and created a commitment to attend a month-long vipassana meditation retreat every year. She completed Larry Yang’s two-year Commit2Dharma study program and began teaching insight meditation at New York Insight after her graduation from Spirit Rock’s fourth Community Dharma Leaders Program. In addition, she recently completed her tenure as President of the Board at Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA. Rosemary is grateful for all that this practice provides.

Nakawe Cuebas Berrios

Nakawe Cuebas Berrios feels blessed to be able to study and journey through different healing and spiritual traditions in her life. The common thread between the many traditions that have touched her path has been the belief that health and wellness depend on a balance between the mind, body, and heart. The healing systems that she has studied are: Midwifery, Chinese acupuncture, Ayurvedic medicine and yoga. Spiritually the practices are Lucumi (Cuba), with roots from the African Yoruba culture and indigenous ceremonies. These practices helped to strengthen her connection to the Earth and Cosmos. Her ancestral home is Puerto Rico, blending the Spanish, African and Taino Indian roots that flow from her ancestors, and give her guidance and strength daily. Her Nuyorican roots are honored by her experiences growing up in New York City.

By profession she has been a Midwife for 40 years and has worked doing home, hospital, birth center births and now works in a community health center in the Bronx providing services of midwifery/well women health care.

For over 20 years she has immersed herself in the teachings of the early Buddhist schools, mainly Theravada and Thai Forest. She studied in the Dedicated Practitioners Program and Community Dharma Leaders Program affiliated with Spirit Rock. She teaches Meditation through the Buddha Dharma. Presently she is in the IMS Teacher Training program, where she shares the Dharma by assisting and teaching on retreats. For 10 years she has served as a mentor with the BAUS Prisoner Correspondence course.

Wildecy de Fátima Jury

Wildecy de Fátima Jury has been formally practicing Theravada/Vipassana meditation over 20 years. She graduated from the Dedicated Practitioner Program and the Community Dharma Leader Program at Spirit Rock, in California. In 2015, she received a non-monastic ordination through the Dharmacharya Program with the Venerables Pannavati and Pannadipa. She has completed the Dharmapala Training with teachers Thanissara and Kittisaro.

She has offered classes and retreats at East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, Insight LA, Zen Center and University of Syracuse, many meditation centers in Brazil, Harlem Insight, Community and New York Insight Meditation Center. At the moment Fátima is at NYIMC Teachers’ Council.

She has studied different spiritual practices and as a spiritual practitioner she has worked with many multicultural communities and groups. She holds a BA in Psychology and Women’s Study and a Master in Social Work. She is certified in Aboriginal Focusing Oriented Therapy through the Justice Institute in Vancouver, BC.

Her intention is to promote the strengthening of sanghas and communities through the cultivation of compassion, unity and decolonization of oppressed and oppressive minds. She is an artist, a writer, and a poet who describes herself as a person within floating identities.

Nancy Glimm

Nancy has been practicing meditation since 1996. She has been a member of NYIMC since it’s inception in 1997. Her first teacher Tamara Engel was one of NYIMC’s founders. Nancy has taught broadly on the Dharma since her graduation from the Community Dharma Leader Teacher Training Program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in 2012. Since 2013 she has been a core teacher for the NYIMC Aging as a Spiritual Practice sangha and courses. Since 2019 she has been a core teacher for the Life and Death year long courses. Her primary teacher since 2012 is Gloria Taraniya Ambrosia.

Nancy is also a psychotherapist with a full time private practice in NYC. Her private practice is informed by her Dharma training.

Rachel Lewis

Rachel Lewis began practicing insight meditation in 2003, while completing her physics PhD at Yale. Since 2011, she has taught dharma and meditation classes and retreats in British Columbia and beyond. She completed the IMS/IRC 4-year teacher training in 2021, and is a guiding teacher of the British Columbia Insight Meditation Society. Her dharma teaching interests include the power of music, humour, and creativity to increase our capacity for learning, as well as the way that practice supports and is supported by social justice work.

Gary Singer

 Gary Singer is a teacher of New York Insight and a graduate of the Community Dharma Leader’s teaching program. He’s been practicing vipassanna meditation since 1992 and integrates mindfulness into his psychotherapy practice. As a founder of NYI’s Family Sangha program, he writes and gives workshops on mindfulness, stress reduction, work/life balance, and intercultural/interracial relationships.

JD Doyle

JD Doyle is the new guiding teacher at Insight Santa Cruz Buddhist Meditation Community. They are a graduate of Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Teacher Training, the Community Dharma Leader training, and the Dedicated Practitioner Program. In 1995, JD began studying and practicing Buddhism at Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock and continued with extensive retreat practice in Thailand and Burma in the Theravadan lineage. JD is a Core Teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, CA, and teaches at sanghas in the Bay area and across the US. For over twenty-three years, they worked as a public-school teacher. JD holds a BS in Environmental Studies from Cornell University, a bilingual multicultural teaching certificate from UC Santa Cruz, and a Masters in Language and Literacy and Sociocultural Studies from the University of New Mexico. JD identifies as gender non-conforming and uses the pronouns they/them/theirs.

Bart van Melik

Bart van Melik is the Community Meditation Center Guiding Teacher. Trained by Joseph Goldstein, Carol Wilson, and Gregory Kramer, he has taught meditation worldwide since 2009. Co-author of Still, in the City: Creating Peace of Mind in the Midst of Urban Chaos, Bart has been bringing the practice to diverse communities like juvenile detention centers, homeless shelters and NYC public schools. He is passionate about supporting people to discover how they can find new ways to relate to life’s stresses. Bart graduated from the IMS/Spirit Rock Teacher Training. Bart is originally from Holland.

Joshua Bee Alafia

joshua bee alafia’s meditation practice began in 1989 when his mother gave him a mantra to work with. This sparked a rich journey into different styles from the Hawaiian Shamanic, Hindu, Sufi, Dzogchen, Taoist, and Vipassana traditions. Wanting to bring Vipassana practice to the youth, he began teaching mindfulness practice to incarcerated, court involved and system vulnerable youth through New York’s Lineage Project in 2010. He is a graduate of the Community Dharma Leaders training through Spirit Rock Meditation Center. He currently teaches mindfulness meditation with South Side Insight Meditation Circle at the Dorchester Art + Housing Collaborative and Taoist Meditation with TaoYoga Chicago.

Nobantu Mpotulo

Nobantu Mpotulo is from Pretoria, South Africa, she is a life-long learner and curious about what this life brings from moment to moment. She has been a Buddhist practitioner for over 20 years. She co-leads a Sangha in South Africa that started during the COVID pandemic lockdown in March 2020. They have been meeting and supporting each other as spiritual friends since then on a daily basis for morning practice. She is a Director at Dharmagiri, a Buddhist teacher, Diamond Approach practitioner and is currently in the Insight Dialogue Teacher Development Programme. Nobantu is also a coach and applies Mindfulness in supporting her clients.

Margo McLoughlin

Margo McLoughlin is a writer, storyteller, and teacher. Margo holds a Master of Divinity from Harvard where she studied Pali and Sanskrit. As an interfaith chaplain at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Margo led a number of storytelling series for patients, families and staff. As a storytelling consultant with the Fetzer Institute, Margo gathered more than 200 folktales on the theme of generosity. Many of those stories are gathered in two anthologies, edited by Margo: Seeds of Generosity: Storytelling in the Classroom and The Giving Heart: Folktales for Exploring Generosity. Currently, Margo is a board member of the BC Association for Living Mindfully (BCALM) and leads retreats and classes with the Victoria Insight Meditation Society.

Ellen Furnari

Ellen Furnari is a graduate of the Community Dharma Leaders program at Spirit Rock and teaches Buddhism in prisons. She shares the dharma, perhaps more widely than some would like, wherever she goes. Ellen is a consultant and researcher with a particular focus on unarmed civilian protection/peacekeeping, and recently wrote for and edited a volume titled “Wielding Nonviolence in the Midst of Violence: Case Studies of Good Practices in Unarmed Civilian Protection.” She is the mother of two wonderful and beautiful grown daughters and recently became a grandmother.

Eve Decker

Eve Decker began Insight Meditation practice in 1991.She is a graduate of the Path of Engagement (social justice and spiritual practice training); and Community Dharma Leader trainings at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California. She is trained in the Hakomi Method (a mindfulness centered somatic healing practice), Awakening Joy developed by James Baraz, Transforming Judgmental Mind developed by Donald Rothberg, and Mindful Self Compassion developed by Kristen Neff and Christopher Germer. She co-leads, with James Baraz, the Insight Community of Berkeley; she is a mentor for the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program headed by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach; and she teaches for the family program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. She also has a podcast, titled LOVED: Mindful and Musical Perspectives on Daily Life (found on Apple Music and Spotify). Eve is also an accomplished musician. She has released five collections of “Dharma Music” (songs inspired by Buddhist teachings). Eve lives with her partner Diane and their dog in Berkeley, CA. For more info and upcoming events see www.evedecker.com

Diana Gould

Diana Gould is a senior teacher at InsightLA, where she has led the Thursday Night Sitting Group for over ten years. She is a graduate of the Community Dharma Leader Program at Spirit Rock, and the Buddhist Chaplaincy Training at the Sati Center. She was a spiritual care volunteer with Vitas Hospice for eight years. As a television writer and producer, her credits include pilots, episodes, movies and miniseries. Her first novel, Coldwater (Rare Bird Books, A Vireo Book, 2013) is soon to be followed by her second.

Alice Alldredge

Alice Alldredge co-leads the Open-Door Sangha, a meditation group in Santa Barbara, California, where she teaches mindfulness/insight meditation and leads sitting groups at the University of California and in the local community. She has meditated for over twenty-five years and is a graduate of Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leaders program.

The same awe and curiosity that led her to explore the outer world through a career as a marine biologist and university science professor has also led her to explore the even greater vastness of our inner world through meditation.

Paul Irving

Paul Irving has practiced in Eastern and Western contemplative traditions for over 40 years. He completed Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leader Program in 2012. He currently works in healthcare administration within the allied health field at UCSF, and is engaged in moment-to-moment family practice with a husband and step-daughter in San Francisco. He teaches at San Francisco Insight, www.sfinsight.org, and San Francisco Zen Center, www.sfzc.org.

Diane Wilde

Diane Wilde has studied meditation in various traditions since 1990. In 2001 she was a founding member of Sacramento Insight Meditation where she currently teaches. She founded Buddhist Pathways Prison Project (aka Boundless Freedom Project) in 2010 and has been a prison chaplain for 19 years. She is a graduate of Sati Center’s Buddhist Chaplaincy program and graduated from Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Community Dharma Leadership Training Program. She is a board member of Sati Center for Buddhist Studies and the Sacramento Dharma Center. In 2015 she was lay-ordained as a Buddhist minister by Gil Fronsdal.