| Part of a series on |
| Buddhism |
|---|
 |
Sylvia Boorstein is an American author, psychotherapist, and Buddhist teacher. [1] [2] [3]
Boorstein studied with Dipa Ma [4] and is a co-founding teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. [5] She is also a senior teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts.
All four of Boorstein's grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. [2] She grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and attended Barnard College. [2] After moving to California in 1961, Boorstein earned a master's degree in social work from the University of California Berkeley in 1967 and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Saybrook University in 1974. [2]
She has written numerous books such as It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness, [6] That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist, [7] Don't Just Do Something, Sit There [8] and Pay Attention for Goodness' Sake. [9]
Engaged Buddhism, also known as socially engaged Buddhism, refers to a Buddhist social movement that emerged in Asia in the 20th century. It is composed of Buddhists who seek to apply Buddhist ethics, insights acquired from meditation practice, and the teachings of the Buddhist dharma to contemporary situations of social, political, environmental, and economic suffering, and injustice.
A Jewish Buddhist is a person with an ethnic Jewish background who believes in the tenets of a form of Buddhism.
The Vipassanā movement refers to a branch of modern Burmese Theravāda Buddhism that promotes "bare insight" (sukha-Vipassana) meditation practice to develop insight into the three marks of existence and attain stream entry. It gained widespread popularity since the 1950s, including through its western derivatives which have been popularised since the 1970s, giving rise to the more dhyana-oriented mindfulness movement.
Nani Bala Barua, better known as Dipa Ma, was an Indian meditation teacher of Theravada Buddhism and was of Barua descent. She was a prominent Buddhist master in Asia and also taught in the United States where she influenced the American branch of the Vipassana movement.
Jack Kornfield is an American writer and teacher in the Vipassana movement in American Theravada Buddhism. He trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma and India, first as a student of the Thai forest master Ajahn Chah and Mahasi Sayadaw of Burma. He has taught mindfulness meditation worldwide since 1974. In 1975, he co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, with Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein, and subsequently in 1987, Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. Kornfield has worked as a peacemaker and activist, organized teacher training, and led international gatherings of Buddhist teachers including the Dalai Lama.
Bhante Henepola Gunaratana is a Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhist monk. He is affectionately known as Bhante G. Bhante Gunaratana is currently the abbot of the Bhavana Society, a monastery and meditation retreat center that he founded in High View, West Virginia, in 1985. He is the author of the bestselling meditation guide Mindfulness in Plain English (1992).
Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu is an American Buddhist monk and author. Belonging to the Thai Forest Tradition, he studied for ten years under the forest master Ajahn Fuang Jotiko. Since 1993, he has served as abbot of the Metta Forest Monastery in San Diego County, California—the first monastery in the Thai Forest Tradition in the U.S.—which he cofounded with Ajahn Suwat Suvaco.
Sharon Salzberg is an author and teacher of Buddhist meditation practice in the West. In 1974, she co-founded the Insight Meditation Society at Barre, Massachusetts, with Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein. Her emphasis is on vipassanā (insight) and mettā (loving-kindness) methods, and she has been leading meditation retreats around the world for several decades.
Tara Brach is an American psychologist, author, and proponent of Buddhist meditation. She is a guiding teacher and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C. (IMCW). Brach also teaches about Buddhist meditation at centers for meditation and yoga in the United States and Europe, including Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California; the Kripalu Center; and the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies.
Gil Fronsdal is a Norwegian-born, American Buddhist teacher, writer and scholar based in Redwood City, California. He has been practicing Buddhism of the Sōtō Zen and Vipassanā sects since 1975, and is currently teaching the practice of Buddhism in the San Francisco Bay Area. Having been taught by the Vipassanā practitioner Jack Kornfield, Fronsdal is part of the Vipassanā teachers' collective at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. He was ordained as a Sōtō Zen priest at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1982, and was a Theravāda monk in Burma in 1985. In 1995, he received Dharma transmission from Mel Weitsman, the abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center.
Joseph Goldstein is one of the first American vipassana teachers, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) with Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg, a contemporary author of numerous popular books on Buddhism, a resident guiding teacher at IMS, and a leader of retreats worldwide on insight (vipassana) and lovingkindness (metta) meditation.
Thubten Chodron, born Cheryl Greene, is an American Tibetan Buddhist nun, author, teacher, and the founder and abbess of Sravasti Abbey, the only Tibetan Buddhist training monastery for Western nuns and monks in the United States. Chodron is a central figure in the reinstatement of the Bhikshuni ordination of women. She is a student of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tsenzhab Serkong Rinpoche, Lama Thubten Yeshe, Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, and other Tibetan masters. She has published many books on Buddhist philosophy and meditation, and is co-authoring with the Dalai Lama a multi-volume series of teachings on the Buddhist path, The Library of Wisdom and Compassion.
Noah Levine is an American Buddhist teacher and author, son of Stephen Levine. As a counselor known for his philosophical alignment with Buddhism and punk ideology, he identifies his Buddhist beliefs and practices with both the Theravada and Mahayana traditions. He has written several books on Buddhism and Buddhist practice including Refuge Recovery: A Buddhist Path to Recovering from Addiction.
Phillip Moffitt is a vipassana (insight) meditation teacher, former publishing executive, author, and an instructor at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California.
Secular Buddhism—sometimes also referred to as agnostic Buddhism, Buddhist agnosticism, ignostic Buddhism, atheistic Buddhism, pragmatic Buddhism, Buddhist atheism, or Buddhist secularism—is a broad term for a form of Buddhism based on humanist, skeptical, and agnostic values, valuing pragmatism and (often) naturalism, eschewing beliefs in the supernatural or paranormal. It can be described as the embrace of Buddhist rituals and philosophy for their secular benefits by people who are atheist or agnostic.
Dharma Seed is non-profit organization "dedicated to preserving and sharing the spoken teachings of Theravada Buddhism in modern languages".
Spirit Rock Meditation Center, commonly called Spirit Rock, is a meditation center in Woodacre, California. It focuses on the teachings of the Buddha as presented in the vipassana, or Insight Meditation, tradition. It was founded in 1985 as Insight Meditation West, and is visited by an estimated 40,000 people a year. The San Francisco Chronicle has called it one of "the Bay Area's best-known centers for Buddhist meditation."
The Plum Village Tradition is a school of Buddhism named after the Plum Village Monastery in France, the first monastic practice center founded by Thích Nhất Hạnh and Chân Không. It is an approach to Engaged Buddhism mainly from a Mahayana perspective, that draws elements from Thiền, Zen, and Pure Land traditions. Its governing body is the Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism.
Anne Cushman is an American teacher of yoga as exercise and meditation, a writer on Mindful Yoga, and a novelist. Her novel Enlightenment for Idiots was named by Booklist as one of the top ten novels of 2008. Cushman has also been an editor for Yoga Journal and Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. She directs mentoring programs and multi-year meditation training for yoga teachers at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center, emphasizing the fusion of yoga and Buddhist meditation and highlighting their shared history and philosophy.
Cyndi Lee is a teacher of mindful yoga, a combination of Tibetan Buddhist practice and yoga as exercise. She has an international reputation and is the author of several books on her approach and runs her business from New York City.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
 | This Buddhist biography-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 | This biography of a United States religious figure is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
