Contributors

Aidan (they/them) is a Buddhist practitioner, Kingian Nonviolence trainer, and co-founder of Pax Fauna, a project to design a new grand strategy for the animal freedom movement. They are lay ordained in the lineage of Cold Mountain Zen. Since getting their start as a community organizer with Direct Action Everywhere in 2015, they have been immersed in studying the craft of disruptive mass movements and have been arrested and jailed for direct actions many times. While Aidan’s own work focuses on ending animal agriculture, they have gained a broad perspective on mass movement building through hands-on experience at the Standing Rock #NoDAPL protests in South Dakota, with Extinction Rebellion in London and elsewhere. After receiving certification from the East Point Peace Academy in 2017, Aidan has taught the Kingian curriculum based on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s philosophy of Nonviolence to encourage activist communities to attend to their inner healing and spiritual communities to take a more active role in socio-political change.

Ajahn Sucitto is a Buddhist monk (bhikkhu). He entered monastic life in 1975 in Thailand, but since 1978 has been based in Britain. He spent fourteen years training under Ajahn Sumedho, the senior Western disciple of Ajahn Chah. The lineage has an umbrella website: forestsangha.org. Ajahn Sucitto is based at Cittaviveka Monastery in Chithurst, West Sussex, near Petersfield in southern England. His most recent book is Buddha-Nature, Human Nature.

Sulak Sivaraksa is a Buddhist spiritual leader and humanitarian best known for his social criticism and grassroots organizing that uses spiritual models to advocate for sustainable change to better the lives of poor, rural Thais. For his activism and writings, he has been exiled from Thailand (1976-77 and 1991-94), jailed four times, and been accused of defaming the Thai monarchy. Born in Thailand in 1933, he studied law in the United Kingdom. Returning to Thailand in 1961, he taught at Chulalongkorn University, founded the Social Science Review (Sangkhomsaat Paritat), and initiated social and ecological organizations such as the Spirit in Education Movement (SEM), and the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB). Sivaraksa has been a visiting professor at UC Berkeley, the University of Hawaii, and Cornell, and he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award (1995), the UNPO Human Rights Award (1998), the Millennium Gandhi Award (2001), and the Niwano Peace Prize (2011).

Hozan Alan Senauke was the abbot of Berkeley Zen Center. He received Dharma Transmission from Sojun Mel Weitsman at Tassajara in 1998. As an engaged Buddhist activist, Hozan founded Clear View Project in 2007, developing Buddhist-based resources for social change in Asia and the US. He worked closely with the International Network of Engaged Buddhists, was past president of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association, and served on the faculty of Upaya Zen Center’s chaplaincy program. Alan was a student and performer of American traditional music for more than 50 years. Hozan was the author of The Bodhisattva’s Embrace: Dispatches From Engaged Buddhism’s Front Lines.

Sensei Alex Kakuyo is a Buddhist teacher and breathwork facilitator. A former marine, he served in both Iraq and Afghanistan before finding the Dharma through a series of happy accidents. Sensei Alex holds a B.A. in philosophy from Wabash College and his life’s work is helping students to bridge the gap between the finite and the infinite. Using movement, meditation, and gratitude practices, he helps them find inner peace in every moment. Sensei Alex is the author of Perfectly Ordinary: Buddhist Teachings for Everyday Life (independently published 2020). His book and other writings can be found on his website: The Same Old Zen. The Ordinary Buddhist is published monthly.

Alex has been designing and facilitating training, geared towards social and personal transformation, for over a decade. They have been part of building long term programs for sustainable activism and psycho-social resilience which have informed The Ulex Project’s work, and coordinated multiple international projects to support propagating this work throughout Europe. Their commitment to social justice and history of activism have involved them in direct action and affinity group work focused on climate justice, anti-capitalism, queer politics and gender identity. As part of the Ulex team, they are involved in project coordination, resource development and course facilitation.

Alfred K. LaMotte (Fred) teaches meditation and gathers poetry circles. He believes that poems are maps for getting lost in the wilderness of your heart, where everyone can find you. Fred also teaches college courses in World Religions, and for many years was an interfaith college chaplain. He lives in a village on the Salish Sea south of Seattle, with his beloved wife Anna and his buddy, Finn, a very large red poodle. His author page is here. His blog site is Uradiance.

Ali Saperstein is a writer and editor based in the Pacific Northwest. She has practiced in the Theravada tradition since the early 2000s and serves as the newsletter editor for Seattle Insight Meditation Society (SIMS).

SIMS is an all-volunteer Dharma community centered in the Pacific Northwest and devoted to offering the Buddha’s teachings on wisdom and compassion to all those who seek them.

Alice Millington is a PhD student researching Tibetan, Vajrayana Buddhist and Himalayan perspectives of climate change with a focus on the ‘more-than-human’ environment.

Alison Ehara-Brown is a co-founder of Idle No More SF Bay and now serves as a grandmother advisor. She is a signatory on the Indigenous Women of the Americas Defending Mother Earth Treaty, and has participated in non-violent direct actions on every solstice and equinox since the Treaty came to life in 2015. She was a key organizer of the Bay Area Refinery Corridor Healing Walks from 2014 to 2017, where indigenous women led Native people and our allies from many organizations on healing walks from between the five refinery impacted towns along the San Francisco Bay. Alison began her involvement with civil disobedience at the age of 13. Now a grandmother, she helps inspire and train other grandmothers to hold the streets, risk arrest, and support younger people.

Amelia L. Williams, PhD, is a poet, medical writer, and eco-artist involved in actions to protest the proposed fracked-gas Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Amelia recently reviewed the book Permaculture and Climate Change Adaptation for Communities Magazine. Author of Walking Wildwood Trail: Poems and Photographs, her most recent eco-art projects are “Triage,” and “Spooked.”

A dedicated practitioner of Vipassana meditation since 2005, Amy Smith teaches mindfulness in Washington DC with the Insight Meditation Community of Washington and served on the IMCW board for five years. Before moving to DC, Amy served as operations director of InsightLA, a mindfulness center in Santa Monica, CA. She is a graduate of Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach’s mindfulness meditation teacher training program and, in addition to Jack and Tara, counts Jonathan Foust and Trudy Goodman as guiding teachers. Amy is also the Deputy Director on the Forest Team at World Wildlife Fund (WWF) where she works to promote forest protection and sustainable use.

Anam Thubten Rinpoche grew up in Tibet and began to practice in the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism at an early age. Rinpoche is the founder and spiritual advisor of the Dharmata Foundation, and teaches internationally. He is also the author of various books in both the Tibetan and English languages, such as The Magic of Awareness and No Self, No Problem. His column for Buddhistdoor, Dharma Gossip, is published bi-monthly.

Andrew Sheng is distinguished fellow of Asia Global Institute, University of Hong Kong, and writes on global finance, climate change, and geopolitical issues. His website is here.

Anita Barrows’ translations of Rilke’s writing with Joanna Macy include Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, In Praise of Mortality, and A Year with Rilke. Anita is a psychologist, a poet and has long been an activist for social justice. Her website is here.

Ann Fisher-Wirth’s seventh book of poems is Paradise Is Jagged (Terrapin Books, 2023). Her sixth is The Bones of Winter Birds, and her fifth, a poetry/photography collaboration with Maude Schuyler Clay, is Mississippi. With Laura-Gray Street, she coedited The Ecopoetry Anthology, now in its third printing. A senior fellow of the Black Earth Institute, she has had Fulbrights to Switzerland and Sweden, and residencies at Djerassi, Hedgebrook, The Mesa Refuge, Camac, and Storyknife. She is the recipient of three poetry fellowships from the Mississippi Arts Commission, the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Poetry Prize, a Rita Dove Poetry Prize, a Malahat Review Long Poem Prize, and the 2023 Governor’s Award for Excellence in Literature and Poetry from the Mississippi Arts Commission. Ann retired in 2022 from the University of Mississippi, where she taught in the MFA program and directed the Environmental Studies program for many years. Until recently, she also taught yoga at Southern Star in Oxford, MS. Her website is here.

Anushka Fernandopulle trained in Buddhist meditation for over 30 years. After studying Buddhism at Harvard, she spent four years in full-time meditation training in the US, India and Sri Lanka. She was invited to teach Dharma in 1998 and later went through a four year meditation teacher training program with Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg and other leading teachers. Her teaching is informed by nature, creative arts, political engagement, and modern urban life. For more info visit: Anushkaf.org.

The Barre Center for Buddhist Studies offers the integration of study and practice in exploring the many streams of teaching and expression that flow from the sources of early Buddhism. Our residential and online programs combine contemplative and relational elements supportive of personal transformation. As an inclusive community, we welcome all interested in Buddhist inquiry as a way of developing wisdom and compassion for the benefit of all beings.

Belvie Rooks incorporates meditation and stillness as part of her youth/elder, intergenerational wisdom circles. Co-founder of “Growing a Global Heart” along with her late husband, Poet Dedan Gills, she has engaged in ceremonial tree plantings along the Trans-Atlantic Slave Route in West Africa and the Underground Railroad in the United States and Canada.

Bhikkhu Anālayo was born in Germany in 1962 and ordained in Sri Lanka in 1995. In the year 2000 he completed a Ph.D. thesis on the Satipatthana-sutta at the University of Peradeniya (published by Windhorse in the UK). In the year 2007 he completed a habilitation research at the University of Marburg, in which he compared the Majjhima-nikaya discourses with their Chinese, Sanskrit, and Tibetan counterparts. At present, he is a member of the Numata Center for Buddhist Studies, University of Hamburg, as a professor, and works as a researcher at Dharma Drum Institue of Liberal Arts, Taiwan. Besides his academic activities, he regularly teaches meditation. His most recent book, Mindfully Facing Climate Change, was published in 2020 by the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (or get the free PDF here).

Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi is an American Buddhist monk and translator of Pali Buddhist texts. He is also the founding chair of Buddhist Global Relief, an organization dedicated to helping communities worldwide afflicted with chronic hunger and malnutrition. He is based at Chuang Yen Monastery in Carmel, New York. He was appointed president of the Buddhist Publication Society (in Sri Lanka) in 1988. Ven. Bodhi has many important publications to his credit, either as author, translator, or editor, including The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha — A Translation of the Majjhima Nikaya (co-translated with Ven. Bhikkhu Nanamoli (1995), The Connected Discourses of the Buddha — a New Translation of the Samyutta Nikaya (2000), and most recently Noble Truths, Noble Path (2023).

Venerable Vivekananda has trained under the Ven. Sayadaw U Panditabhivamsa of Myanmar since 1988. He is the resident teacher and abbot at Panditarama Lumbini International Vipassana Meditation Center, Lumbini, Nepal. He has been teaching Vipassana meditation and Brahma Vihara meditation in the tradition of the Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw since 1998 in Lumbini, Nepal, the United States, Europe, and Israel.

Bill McKibben is an author and environmentalist who in 2014 was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the ‘alternative Nobel.’ His 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has appeared in 24 languages; he’s gone on to write a dozen more books. He is a founder of 350.org, the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement, which has organized twenty thousand rallies around the world in every country save North Korea, spearheaded the resistance to the Keystone Pipeline, and launched the fast-growing fossil fuel divestment movement. His website is here.

Born in Paris in 1959, Claudio Basso has had an impressive volume of fashion-photography work published across four continents and has been a dedicated Buddhist practitioner since 1981 in the Order of Interbeing. By early 2000 Claudio legally adopted his Buddhist name Bodhivata Dharmashanti, given to him by his root teacher, the Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh. Following a near-death medical experience in 2008, Bodhivata decided to pull out of the fashion frenzy and dedicate his talent to describe his spiritual connection to Mother Nature. His following work in Zen Landscape Portraiture has been widely recognized by the public and noted art collectors. He is the author of three books: Being the Flow (co-authored with Bodhipaksa), Being Peace; and Being Happiness. He is currently writing his fourth book, entitled Emails to Myself – Suggestions for a Good Life. Bodhivata lives in New York City.

Bonnie Duran is a core-teacher of the IMS Teacher Training Program, the SRMC Dedicated Practitioners Program and is on the SRMC Guiding Teachers Council. Bonnie teaches long and short retreats at IMS, Spirit Rock and in other communities, and is also involved in Native American spiritual practices and traditions. She is a contributor to Hilda Gutiérrez Baldoquin book, Dharma, Color and Culture: New Voices in Western Buddhism and has written for the Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Tricycle, and the Turning Wheel. Dr. Duran is a professor in the schools of social work and public health at the University of Washington. She is also on the leadership team at the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute. She has worked in public health research, evaluation and education among Tribes, Native Organizations and other communities of color for more than 35 years.

Br. Tenzin (Dr. Alex Anderson) began with an ecologist’s understanding of interdependence, researching the impact of climate change on biodiversity, but the rainforest soon led him to meditation. Now ordained as a monk in the Buddhist tradition, he has studied and practiced meditation under Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh at Plum Village in France, in the Sakya Tibetan tradition, and at Pa Auk Tawya in the Burmese Forest tradition.  His approach is informed by Theravadin, Zen, and Vajrayana methods of meditation and mindfulness, as well as Hatha Yoga, Deep Ecology, and his deep love of wild places.  He currently lives on the Dorrigo Plateau in New South Wales, Australia, where he has a project to co-create community space for meditation and nature connection: http://www.gaiaforest.org.

Brenna Artinger (they/them) is an independent Buddhist Studies scholar and journalist who received their MPhil in Buddhist Studies from the University of Oxford in 2020. Their work focuses on the intersection of Buddhism and Queer Theory, specifically the alterity contained in Pāli Vinaya texts, and the ways in which textual reorientation can lead to trans* activism. They also write often about Buddhist Nationalism and Extremism in the US and South-East Asia.

Britt Wray, PhD is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Human and Planetary Health at Stanford University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, eco-anxiety researcher, writer, creator of the weekly Gen Dread newsletter about “staying sane in the climate crisis” and author of Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis. Her website is brittwray.org.

Brother Protection (Thay Phap Ho), a monk in the Thích Nhất Hạnh tradition, resides at Deer Park Monastery and is active in its Earth Holding initiatives. The Deer Park community blogs about mindful engagement in a warming world at Earth Holding Here and Now. An interview with Brother Protection appears on the website of Wake Up, a global community of young mindfulness practitioners in the Thích Nhất Hạnh tradition who have, among other things, organizes meditation flash mobs around the world.

Buddhistdoor Global (BDG) is an online Buddhist journal providing a diverse range of English-language Buddhist content to the world, centered on the Dharma and dedicated to serving Buddhist communities and helping practitioners navigate their spiritual path.

Canada’s National Observer (CNO) delivers vital reporting on the defining crisis of our time: climate change. Through rigorous investigation and compelling storytelling, we expose the forces shaping Canada’s future – from political power to public health, from disinformation campaigns to business transformation.

Candace Batycki is a Kootenay Shambhala member, activist, writer and environmental consultant living in Nelson, British Columbia.

Dr Carmody Grey is on the Advisory Board of Las Casas Institute. She is currently Assistant Professor of Catholic Theology at Durham University. She works mainly in the areas of philosophical theology and theological ethics, with a focus on science, nature and environment. She has degrees in theology from Trinity College Oxford, King’s College Cambridge and the University of Nottingham. Before starting her doctorate she was Head of Philosophy, Religion and Ethics at Bedales School in Hampshire, as well as pursuing her ongoing interest in ecology and the life sciences through a postgraduate degree from Edinburgh. She teaches and speaks publicly in a variety of arenas, and is a columnist for The Tablet.

Carolyn Chilton Casas is a Reiki master and teacher whose favorite themes to write about are nature, mindfulness, and ways to heal. Her articles and poems have appeared in Braided Way, Energy, Grateful Living, Reiki News Magazine, and in other publications. You can read more of Carolyn’s work on Facebook, on Instagram @mindfulpoet_, and in her collection of poems, Our Shared Breath, as well as a forthcoming collection, Under the Same Sky.

Cass Hebron is a climate communications consultant and editor of The Green Fix newsletter. She works on communications and events with climate advocacy organisations including Friends of the Earth Europe, Oxfam EU and Climate Action Network Europe. Her main focus is on degrowth, climate justice and activist mental health. British-Spanish and living in Brussels, Belgium.

Charles Schweger considers Trungpa Rinpoche and then Thrangu Rinpoche to have been his teachers. Thrangu Rinpoche encouraged him to pursue eco-buddhism, and Touch the Earth Forum began in 2010 as a non-sectarian group for practicing buddhists. Charles has academic degrees in geology with lots of botany and has taught in Anthropology at the University of Alberta for 37 years. His work has centred on the paleo-ecology of the North, climate change and geoarchaeology. Charles loved doing field work throughout the arctic and is grateful for the opportunities to work with Indigenous people and to walk in wilderness. These experiences continue to feed into his buddhist practice, which in turn adds much to his experience of the natural world.

Chas has been practicing Buddhist meditation for almost 30 years. He has trained with Burmese meditation masters, western monastics of the Thai Forest tradition and senior western vipassana teachers. A graduate of the four-year joint Insight Meditation Society / Spirit Rock Teacher Training Program, he teaches retreats at Insight Meditation Society and at various centers and sanghas throughout the country. Chas explores how the dharma can be practiced in relationship, including how the masculine and feminine energies manifest in relationship, in spiritual practice, and in the world.

Chatral Sangye Dorje Rinpoche was a Dzogchen master and a reclusive yogi known for his great realization and strict discipline. Rinpoche was one of the few living disciples of Khenpo Ngawang Pelzang and was widely regarded as one of the most highly realized Dzogchen practitioners. At the age of 15, he left his home to study and practice with Buddhist masters in Tibet, Bhutan, and beyond. He remained a wandering yogi until his death in 2015.

Dr. Chris Shunmyō Goto-Jones (he/him) is a Buddhist Eco-Chaplain living and working on the unceded territories of the Lekwungen peoples, otherwise known as southern Vancouver Island, BC, Canada, where he runs the non-profit society, Dharma of Trees. He is also a therapist in private practice, professor in Philosophy at the University of Victoria, and honorary professor in Asian Studies at UBC.

Christiana Figueres is an internationally recognized leader on climate change. She was Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change from 2010 to 2016, where she oversaw the delivery of the historic Paris Agreement. Today she is the co-founder of Global Optimism, co-host of the podcast “Outrage & Optimism” and is the co-author of the book, “The Future We Choose.” Her website is here.

Christine Wamsler is Professor of Sustainability Science and Director of the Contemplative Sustainable Futures Program at Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies.

Dr. Clair Brown is Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Work, Technology, and Society at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Buddhist Economics: An Enlightened Approach to the Dismal Science. Using the Buddhist economics framework, Clair’s team is developing a measure of economic performance based on the quality of life, and estimating it for state of California. This index integrates measurements of inequality and environmental degradation as well as value of non-market activities and consumption to provide an inclusive measurement of sustainable economic performance to evaluate our economic performance and to guide policy.

Claudia Zhang wrote this essay for her Buddhist Economics course at Williams College in spring 2021. She will graduate in 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. Her hometown is Holmdel, New Jersey. In addition to her passion for chemistry research, Claudia is interested in running, gardening, and cooking.

Coryna Ogunseitan (they/them and she/her) is the program manager of Beloved Community Circles, where she focuses on developing and implementing programming to support the enormously diverse group of people who comprise new and existing Circles. Coryna is also a PhD researcher in the UCSF/UC Berkeley Joint Program in Medical Anthropology, where their research focuses on the impacts of climate change on mental health and how climate change reshapes affective relationships with the natural world.

Craig Lewis is a Buddhist journalist and photographer, and Senior Editor for the online Buddhist journal Buddhistdoor Global, with a focus on engaged Buddhism and environmental awareness. His Dharma-inspired photography—which seeks to express the fragility and fundamental impermanence of life and the natural phenomena that surround us, especially in the Vajrayana and Himalayan context—can be seen at newlightdreams.com.

Damchö is spiritual director and a founder of Comunidad Dharmadatta, one of the largest Buddhist practice communities serving Latin America. Dharmadatta Community understands the path to liberation to be a primarily collective rather than individual path. In her teachings, Damchö transmits an earth-based vision of the Dharma in which care for our more-than-human kin is integral to spiritual practice. She has a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in gender and ethics in Sanskrit and Tibetan Buddhist narratives, and is translator and co-editor of Interconnected: Embracing Life in our Global Society.

Daniel J. Siegel, MD, is the executive director of the Mindsight Institute and founding co-director of the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Dr. Siegel is a New York Times bestselling author of several books including Mind, The Mindful Brain, Parenting from the Inside Out, Aware, and the internationally acclaimed bestselling textbook The Developing Mind, which has been utilized by a number of organizations including the US Department of Justice and the Vatican. Dr. Siegel’s publications for professionals and the public have been translated into over 40 languages.

Danna Faulds is a poet who credits the practice of meditation with giving her reliable access to a vivid inner life and creative voice. Danna is the author of seven books of poetry: Go In and In, One Soul, Prayers to the Infinite, From Root to Bloom, Breath of Joy, and What’s True Here, as well as the memoir Into the Heart of Yoga.

Dave began his first week-long meditation retreat on March 10, 2020—when he emerged, both he and the world had changed entirely. Shortly afterwards, he completed his PhD in cognitive psychology and moved to a cottage in the hills of rural Northwest New Jersey. Here he has been studying the mind through both research methods and mindfulness practice. Dave is currently most interested in how mindfulness, wise speech, and psychology might help us skillfully break the tendency to be silent about climate crisis in our interpersonal relationships. Dave’s meditation practice has benefited immeasurably from teachers in the Western Insight community, most notably from Chas DiCapua and Mark Nunberg. He also receives endless inspiration from the wise and penetrative words of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, and he is never found too far from his copy of I Am That.

David Robert Loy is vice-president of the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center. He is a professor, writer, and teacher in the Sanbo tradition of Japanese Zen Buddhism. A student of Yamada Koun and Robert Aitken, he was authorized to teach in 1988 and leads retreats and workshops nationally and internationally. He is author of EcoDharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis and A New Buddhist Path: Enlightenment, Evolution, and Ethics in the Modern World, and he is co-editor of A Buddhist Response to the Climate Emergency. His website is davidloy.org.

Deborah Eden Tull, founder of the nonprofit Mindful Living Revolution, is Zen meditation/mindfulness teacher, author, and spiritual activist. She spent seven years as a monastic at a silent Zen Monastery, and has been immersed in sustainable communities for 25 years. Eden’s teaching style is grounded in compassionate awareness, non-duality, mindful inquiry, and an unwavering commitment to personal transformation. She teaches dharma intertwined with post-patriarchal thought and practices, resting upon a lived knowledge of our unity with the more than human world. She also facilitates The Work That Reconnects, as created by Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy. Eden has been practicing meditation for the past 30 years and teaching for over 20 years. Her books include Luminous Darkness: An Engaged Buddhist Approach to Embracing the Unknown (Shambhala 2022), Relational Mindfulness: A Handbook for Deepening Our Connection with Our Self, Each Other, and Our Planet (Wisdom 2018), and The Natural Kitchen: Your Guide to the Sustainable Food Revolution (Process Media 2011). She lives in Black Mountain,North Carolina, Cherokee land, and offers retreats, workshops, leadership trainings, and consultations internationally.

Dekila Chungyalpa is the director of the Loka Initiative, whose mission is to support faith-led environmental efforts locally and around the world through collaborations with faith leaders and religious institutions on environmental protection, sustainable development, and global health issues. Prior to that, she was the recipient of the McCluskey fellowship at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies where she also lectured and researched. Dekila founded and directed Sacred Earth, an acclaimed faith-based conservation program at the World Wildlife Fund from 2009 to 2014. She has served as the WWF-US Director for the Greater Mekong Program and also worked for WWF in the Eastern Himalayas. Dekila serves as the environmental adviser for His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, head of the Karma Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism.

Dr. Dipen Barua is an honorary lecturer at the Centre of Buddhist Studies, The University of Hong Kong (HKU). He earned his Bachelor’s degree from Calcutta University, his first Master’s degree in Pali from Pune University (now Savitribai Phule Pune University), India, and a second Master, an MPhil and PhD in Buddhist Studies from HKU. He has authored a book and has published several articles, in both Bengali and English, on the subject of Buddhist studies, women’s issues, Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia, and cultural heritage.

Donald Rothberg, PhD, has practiced Insight Meditation since 1976, and has also received training in Tibetan Dzogchen, Mahamudra practice and the Hakomi approach to body-based psychotherapy. Formerly on the faculties of the University of Kentucky, Kenyon College, and Saybrook Graduate School, he currently writes and teaches classes, groups and retreats on meditation, daily life practice, spirituality and psychology, and socially engaged Buddhism. He is the author of The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World and the co-editor of Ken Wilber in Dialogue: Conversations with Leading Transpersonal Thinkers.

Dr. Valerie (Vimalasara) Mason-John, M.A (hon.doc) is a public speaker and master trainer in the field of conflict transformation, leadership and mindfulness. They are a senior teacher in the Triratna Buddhist Community and one of the leading African descent voices in the field of mindfulness for addiction. They are the award-winning author of 10 books, and the co-author and co-founder of Eight Step Recovery: Using The Buddha’s Teaching to Overcome Addiction. The chairperson of the Triratna Vancouver Buddhist Centre in British Columbia, Canada, Vimalasara leads and co-leads retreats both nationally and internationally.

I am of Indigenous Nahua and Maya descent of the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. My work intersects Indigenous studies, cultural psychology, and contemplative studies. I investigate the embodied experience of self-transcendence in Indigenous contemplative traditions and the way it enhances prosocial behavior (ethics, compassion, kindness, awe, sacredness, and love). My thesis on the “ethics of belonging” offers an earth-based ecology that engenders wellness and purpose through relational ecological awareness. My work emphasizes the reclamation, revitalization, and transmission of Indigenous wisdom and the advancement of Indigenous and planetary rights. My website is yuriacelidwen.com

Dudjom Rinpoche III is a Buddhist practitioner and teacher. He presides over the Dudjom Tersar, a treasury of powerful methods for developing compassion and wisdom amidst the turmoil of our world. Born in 1990, he practiced intensively in Tibet and Nepal through 2018, primarily under the direction of Chatral Sangye Dorje. In 2019 he made his first trip to Spain, Switzerland, France, and Russia, and he took leadership of a Dudjom center in Valencia, Spain.

Webby-winning, Ellie-, Peabody- and Emmy-nominated publication and creative studio exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture and spirituality.

Emilie Lygren is a poet, naturalist, and outdoor educator whose work emerges from the intersections between scientific observation and poetic wonder. Her first book of poetry, What We Were Born For, was chosen by the Young People’s Poet Laureate as the February 2022 Book Pick for the Poetry Foundation. She lives in California, where she wonders about oaks and teaches poetry in local classrooms. Her website is emilielygren.com.

Emma Lewis is the Director of Development and Outreach at the Asian Legacy Library. She previously worked with the Buddhist Digital Resource Center and was a Fulbright Scholar in Dehradun, India.

Emma Palmer is a relational body psychotherapist, ecopsychologist, supervisor and facilitator. She’s been a practising, registered therapist since 2003 and is based in Bristol, UK. Emma encountered Buddhism in 1995 and was ordained in the Triratna Buddhist Order from 2005-2016. She has since taken the precepts in the Soto Zen tradition and has led and/or supported retreats in the UK at Taraloka and Gaia House, Ecodharma in Spain, and is a long-distance supporter of the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Center in Colorado. In 2012 Mantra Books published her first book, Meditating with Character, and she has since published numerous papers and three further books: Other than Mother, Bodywise and #MeToo: Counsellors and Psychotherapists Speak about Sexual Violence and Abuse. She’s felt extraordinarily appreciative of practice during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Evguenia is a young Russian immigrant living and practicing their crafts on the unceded traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations (Vancouver, BC). They are fascinated by the creative possibilities of language and are currently working as a Russian translator. Their ceramic practice and teaching experience has spanned the globe, from Toronto to Taipei, and they will soon be opening their own studio. A novice Soto Zen Buddhist practitioner of 2 years, they are humbled by the elegance of the Dharma and strive to live their life in accordance with the teachings. They can be reached at .

Fitzhugh Shaw lives uphill from Andrew Carnegie’s first steel mill in Braddock, Pennsylvania, United States, with his wife and child. He’s a white descendant of Chickasaw and Scottish ancestors. He’s an urban farmer engaged in food justice, soil-building, and land healing. He’s also an ancestor-wrangler, writer, artist, and frequent napper. He takes care of two dogs, one cat, a school of fish, two humans, a flock of hens, and a whole lotta mushroom and plant people. In his scholarship, Fitzhugh explores intersections between peoples’ histories, ritual practice, political movements, and food systems. In his fiction, he dreams histories of a liberatory future. His art practice expands through the cracks in our current ideologies, wondering about the kinds of listening that are possible when we release our purity and security blankets. He is curious about the rituals of his ancestors and how to mix their wisdom with the wisdom of the dharma without tokenizing either. Currently, he manages a large, urban market garden for a Black-led and Black-serving non-profit in Pittsburgh through which he teaches agriculture and food literacy. He sometimes writes at foodpower.site.

The Rev. Fletcher Harper is GreenFaith’s Executive Director. A pioneer of the global religious environmental movement, he helps spearhead the faith-based fossil fuel divestment movement, organizes faith turnouts at major climate mobilizations, and is a co-founder of Shine, an international campaign that supports women and community-led renewable energy access initiatives in Africa and India.

Gabriel Dayley co-founded and edits The Arrow Journal, which investigates applications of contemplative wisdom traditions to confronting pressing social, political, and environmental challenges. He also works in local climate action, with a focus on ensuring that strategies for climate mitigation and adaptation are equitable, inclusive, and just. Gabriel received an M.A. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from American University and a B.A. in International Relations from Pomona College. His graduate research examined how to address ecological harm using methods from conflict analysis, peacebuilding, and mindfulness research. He has designed and led workshops to examine whiteness and racism, to investigate toxic masculinity, and to address our personal and collective ecological footprint. While working on The Arrow, Gabriel enjoys drinking delicious, home-brewed coffee.

Gil Fronsdal has practiced Zen and vipassana since 1975 and has a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from Stanford. Trained by Jack Kornfield, he is the founder and primary teacher of the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California and is also a husband and father. He is the author of The Issue at Hand, co-editor of Teachings of the Buddha, editor of Voices From Spirit Rock, and has published an acclaimed new translation of The Dhammapada.

Earth Initiative is a Dharma Action group in the Mountains and Rivers Order. EI meets regularly at the Temple and at the Monastery to address environmental justice, the climate crisis, and how to learn from and care for our great earth as dharma practice.

Greenfaith is a global, grassroots, interfaith movement rising for climate justice.

Greg Dalton founded Climate One at The Commonwealth Club in 2007 after traveling to the Russian Arctic on a global warming symposium with climate scientists and journalists. Today Climate One produces a weekly radio show broadcast on public stations in California and across the country in addition to a podcast that is heard around the world.

Climate One is the only regular talk show that engages high-level leaders from business, policy, advocacy and academic circles in a conversation about building sustainable economies, resilient communities and a healthier future. Past guests include science icon Jane Goodall, music legend Graham Nash, former Vice President Al Gore, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, Tea Party co-founder Debbie Dooley, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, Chevron CEO Dave O’Reilly, GM Chairman Dan Akerson, Ford Motor Co. Chairman Bill Ford, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune, and many other leaders.

Guhyapati is the founder of the ecodharma centre in the Catalan Pyrenees, which combines a retreat and education centre with post-capitalist community living. Thirty years of Dharma practice and social activism, together with an astute sense of group dynamics, inform his facilitation of participatory and holistic learning. He was ordained in the Triratna Buddhist Order in 1994. He has given much of his time to the development of trainings focused on engaged Buddhism and sustainable activism. He has spent the last few years translating and channelling learning from Ecodharma into a social movement capacity building programme at the Ulex Project. His love of the mountains finds expression in guiding wilderness immersion retreats and teaching radical ecology.

You can learn more about Heather Lyn Mann, her teachings and retreats here on her website.

Heather Sundberg’s long-term dharma service work has been on behalf of youth, women’s equality, and working with those impacted by forest fires, as well as more recently supporting activists on the front lines of the Ukrainian refugee crisis. An Insight Meditation teacher since 1999, she completed the Spirit Rock/IMS Teacher Training program under Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein, and is a member of the Spirit Rock Teacher’s Council. Heather has studied long-term with senior teachers in the Theravada and Vajrayana traditions, completing three accumulated years of retreat. She teaches two year Awareness-Emptiness Trainings for experienced meditators. Her teaching emphasizes embodiment, nervous system and energy practices to promote healthy regulation and liberation in the midst of chronic collective trauma producing global circumstances. Learn more at Heather Sundberg.

Ivy is 10 years old and has grown up in the Pacific Northwest. She loves backpacking with her mom and friends, playing with her dogs, gymnastics and music. She has been playing the piano for 4 years, and it has quickly become more than a hobby. It is a place where she creates and finds ways to put her experience of the world into notes and sometimes words. Ivy homeschools part-time and is going into the 5th grade this year.

J Henry Fair uses pictures to tell stories about people and things that affect people. Much of his recent work is centered on environmental issues. More on his website.

Jack Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India and Burma. He has taught meditation since 1974 and was one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness to the West. His website is jackkornfield.com.

Jacqueline Kramer, author of Buddha Mom: A Journey Through Mindful Mothering, 10 Spiritual Practices for Busy Parents and Awakening at Home, has been studying and practicing Buddhism for over 50 years. She is founder and former director of the Hearth Foundation, which developed teachings for families, is past VP of Alliance for Bhikkhunis and current director of Awakening at Home, which offers online support for meditation. She received the Outstanding Women in Buddhism Award for her work teaching Buddhism to mothers. Jacqueline is a mother, grandmother, artist and activist living in Sonoma, California.

Jamie Bristow is a policy expert linking inner and outer change, known for landmark reports such as The System Within: addressing the inner dimensions of sustainability and systems transformation. He currently leads on public narrative and policy development for the Inner Development Goals.

Jane Brunette is a writer and Dharma teacher with an inter-lineage Buddhist practice. Her website is here.

Dr. Jason M. Wirth is professor of philosophy at Seattle University, and works and teaches in the areas of Continental Philosophy, Buddhist Philosophy, Aesthetics, Environmental Philosophy, and Africana Philosophy. His recent books include Nietzsche and Other Buddhas (Indiana 2019), Mountains, Rivers, and the Great Earth: Reading Gary Snyder and Dōgen in an Age of Ecological Crisis (SUNY 2017), a monograph on Milan Kundera (Commiserating with Devastated Things, Fordham 2015), Schelling’s Practice of the Wild (SUNY 2015), and the co-edited volumes (with Bret Davis and Brian Schroeder), Japanese and Continental Philosophy: Conversations with the Kyoto School (Indiana 2011) and Engaging Dōgen’s Zen (Wisdom 2016). He is the associate editor and book review editor of the journal, Comparative and Continental Philosophy. He was ordained in 2010 in Japan as a priest in the Sōtō Zen lineage and is the founder and co-director of the Seattle University EcoSangha (www.ecosangha.net).

Jeff Wagner is Founder and Director of Groundwork, a Colorado non-profit that offers educational programs and publications to shift the ways we understand ourselves and our place in the world, in order to work towards more just and sustainable shared futures. Groundwork’s Environmental Fellowship–Building Sustainable Culture in an Unraveling World—offers young environmental leaders an opportunity to manage a self-sustaining farm in Western Colorado, while studying a radical curriculum focused on the intersection of ecology, economics, culture, place, and food. Topics include Small is Beautiful: Economics for Sustainability; Seed, Soil, and Food; Place, Culture, and Climate Change; and Structural Power in the American West: Settler Colonialism, Water, and Public Lands. He is the author of a series of Bite-Sized Books on climate change and culture.

Jessica Morey is a meditation teacher and coach. She has been practicing meditation for three decades. She began her practice on teen retreats at the Insight Meditation Society and graduated from the IMS teacher training program in 2021. She brings a sense of playfulness and care to her teaching and focuses on how we can bring our meditation practice off the cushion into our relationships and work. Jess studied engineering and worked in clean energy finance before founding Inward Bound Mindfulness Education, a nonprofit organization bringing youth in-depth mindfulness and compassion training.

Jessica Serrante is a coach, facilitator, and trainer who has been supporting activists in the climate movement since 2007. She has served on staff at organizations like Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network and worked with groups like Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion. Her first encounter with Joanna’s work a decade ago changed her life, transformed her burnout, and led to a deep, abiding friendship. Jess is 35 and lives in Oakland, California. More information at her website.

Roshi Joan Halifax, Ph.D., is a Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and pioneer in the field of end-of-life care. She is Founder, Abbot, and Head Teacher of Upaya Institute and Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She received her Ph.D. in medical anthropology in 1973 and has lectured on the subject of death and dying at many academic institutions and medical centers around the world. She received a National Science Foundation Fellowship in Visual Anthropology, was an Honorary Research Fellow in Medical Ethnobotany at Harvard University, and was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Library of Congress.

Joan Mooney is a writer and Buddhist practitioner in Washington, DC.

Joan Sutherland, Roshi, is a founder of the Pacific Zen School (a contemporary koan school), as well as the founding teacher of The Open Source, a network that includes sanghas in Colorado, Arizona, and the Bay Area. Now retired from working directly with students, her teachings continue through Cloud Dragon, an online source for her writings and talks. She is the author of Vimalakirti & the Awakened Heart and Acequias and Gates: Miscellaneous Writings on Miscellaneous Koans.

Joanna Macy, PhD is a scholar of Buddhism, systems theory and deep ecology. A respected voice in the movements for peace, justice and ecology, she gives trainings worldwide for eco-warriors and activists for global justice. As the root teacher of the Work That Reconnects, she has created a ground-breaking theoretical framework for personal and social change. Her books include World as Lover, World as Self, Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World and A Wild Love for the World: Joanna Macy and the Work of Our Times. Her website is joannamacy.net.

Johann Robbins is Director Emeritus and Cofounder of the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center. He teaches Dharma and meditation in the Insight/Vipassana tradition.Johann has been meditating since 1974 with a focus on Mindfulness since 1997. He was asked to teach in 2008, and has completed the two year Community Dharma Leader teacher training program at Spirit Rock. His primary teachers include Shinzen Young and Eric Kolvig (who also helped found Impermanent Sangha and taught wilderness retreats for many years before his retirement). His passion is teaching spiritual practice in nature, and he has guided and taught wilderness retreats in various traditions for over 25 years. Johann founded Impermanent Sangha in 2002 and has led dozens of nature meditation retreats since then, including backpacking, camping, canoeing, and rafting.

John Bell, True Wonderful Wisdom, (pronouns he/him) is a Plum Village Buddhist Dharma teacher who lives near Boston, MA, USA. He is a founding staff member and former vice president of YouthBuild USA, an international non-profit that provides learning, earning, and leadership opportunities to young people from low-income backgrounds. He is an author, lifelong social justice activist, international trainer facilitator, father and grandfather. He is the author of YouthBuild’s North Star, and Unbroken Wholeness: Six Pathways to the Beloved Community: Integrating Social Justice, Emotional Healing, and Spiritual Practice.

John Harvey Negru is publisher at The Sumeru Press, Canada’s largest independent Buddhist book publisher, and author most recently of Bodhisattva 4.0: A Primer for Engaged Buddhists. The book comprises 108 short introductions to the ethical issues inherent in emerging technologies, environmental crises, and a sustainable future, from a Buddhist perspective, supplemented by 500+ resources for further study and networking. He has been involved in many Buddhist community development projects and environmental causes over the past 50 years, and has been a technological design educator for more than 25 years.

John Peacock is both an academic and a Buddhist practitioner of nearly fifty years. Trained initially in the Tibetan Gelugpa tradition in India, he subsequently spent time in Sri Lanka studying Theravada. After doing a doctorate in philosophy, he taught Buddhist and Western philosophy and then Buddhist Studies at the University of Bristol. He went on to be Associate Director of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre , co-direct the Master of Studies programme in MBCT (Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy) at Oxford University, and teach Buddhist psychology on the same course. John is now retired from academia and continues to teach meditation, as he has done for more than thirty-five years.

John Seed is founder of the Rainforest Information Centre. Since 1979 he has been involved in the direct actions which have resulted in the protection of the Australian rainforests. He has written and lectured extensively on deep ecology and eco-psychology and has been conducting experiential deep ecology workshops around the world for 35 years. The book he wrote in 1988 with Joanna Macy and others, Thinking Like a Mountain – Towards a Council of All Beings, has been translated into 12 languages. In 1995 he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) by the Australian Government for services to conservation.

John Stanley, Ph.D. is a biologist who has led university and government research in Canada, Switzerland and the U.K. He is co-editor of A Buddhist Response to the Climate Emergency, which features contributions by the Dalai Lama and 21 other Buddhist leaders. From 2008 to 2017, he was the director of Ecobuddhism.org, which examined the global ecological crisis through the lenses of science, action, and spiritual wisdom.

Joseph Goldstein has been leading insight and lovingkindness meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. He is a cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, where he is one of the organization’s guiding teachers. In 1989, together with several other teachers and students of insight meditation, he helped establish the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.

Julie A. Nelson is a Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston; a Senior Research Fellow with the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University; and a Dharma teacher at Greater Boston Zen Center. Dr. Nelson is the author of Economics for Humans, as well as many other books and articles on gender, ethics, economics, and ecology. Her work has been published in journals ranging from the American Economic Review and Econometrica to Ecological Economics, Ethics & the Environment, and the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. Her writings can also be found on her blog. She lives in a cooperative household in Arlington, is the mother of two grown children, and an avid dancer.
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Justin Whitaker grew up on a dirt road 10 miles from the nearest town in Montana. In college he stumbled upon Philosophy and Buddhism, two loves that have carried him around the world ever since. He now holds a PhD in Buddhist ethics from the University of London and lives in Missoula, Montana.

Kalden Dhatsenpa is a Tibetan writer and artist based in Tio‘tià:ke, or Mooniyang, or Montréal, and a member of the Canadian Dimension editorial board. He is the host of the film podcast Cheapy Tuesdays, and a former federal candidate for the NDP in Longueuil—Charles-Lemoyne.

Kalzang Dorjee Bhutia is a Lhopo religious studies scholar from west Sikkim in northeast India. He is a visiting fellow at the East Asian Studies Center, University of Southern California. He studies relationships between human and more-than-human communities in Sikkim, and makes traditional prayer flags for communities around his home region.



Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa teaches religious studies and Asian studies at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Originally from Aotearoa, she works on Buddhist material culture in the Himalayas.



Ang Dolma Sherpa is a social entrepreneur who won the top “ideator” award at Idea Studio Nepal 2019 for her concept of biodegradable khatak, or scarves.



Pasang Yangjee Sherpa is a Sharwa anthropologist from Pharak, southern part of Mt. Everest region in northeastern Nepal. Her research, writing and pedagogy focus on climate change and Indigeneity among Himalayan communities, guided by the question: How do we live in the midst of dying?

Karin Meyers has taught Buddhist Studies at several colleges and universities in the US and abroad, and will be joining Mangalam Research Institute in Berkeley as acting Academic Director in the summer of 2020. Her scholarly work focuses on bringing Buddhist and comparative religious perspectives to bear on basic questions about the constitution of our world, knowledge, and ethics. She also speaks to Buddhist sanghas, college students, and activists about how the accelerating ecological crisis calls for a deepening and evolution of socially engaged forms of Buddhist practice.

Katie has had a Buddhist practice since 2007 when one of her professors put a chapter from Thích Nhất Hạnh’s Being Peace in a class reader. She studied Politics with an emphasis on U.S. labor, economic, and social policy development and went on to become an organic farm administrator and early childhood/elementary educator, all the while on a path seeking inner healing and wholeness. Her practice helped her uncover a profound connection with the Earth that filled a longing she’d felt for much of her life. The ground beneath her feet became her home, and this mutual love with the Earth inspired her to get involved with One Earth Sangha. Katie (loosely) wears many hats in life and is passionate about internal and external liberation. She has lived her whole life in Northern California and currently resides in Oakland.

Keri E. Iyall Smith is an enrolled member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe. She is Associate Professor of Sociology at Suffolk University. She is the author of States and Indigenous Movements, co-editor of several books on Sociology and Human Rights, and the author of several book chapters and articles on Indigenous Peoples and human rights.

Kevin is an attorney, author, and facilitator. He spent a decade in Washington, D.C. working on climate change, clean energy, and international peace building issues. He is a core member of the Council on the Uncertain Human Future and an organizing member of Sacred Activism, a think tank exploring the intersection of climate change and mindfulness. He has trained with the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies, the Center for Council, School of Lost Borders, and the Work That Reconnects.

Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche was a senior scholar within the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and the author of many books and commentaries. He was born in Kham, Tibet, in 1933 and entered Thrangu Monastery at age seven. He served as the main tutor to His Holiness the Seventeenth Karmapa and traveled worldwide giving teachings and leading retreats. He was also abbot of Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia and founder of Vajra Vidya Retreat Center in Crestone, Colorado. He passed away on June 4, 2023.

Kirsten Rudestam is an environmental educator, wilderness guide, and meditation teacher. She has a PhD in Environmental Sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz where she studied environmental justice and Indigenous water practices. She has fifteen years of experience teaching field-based and classroom-based college courses in environmental studies and sociology, is trained as a vision fast guide through the School of Lost Borders and is a facilitator for Joanna Macy’s Work that Reconnects. Kirsten has been practicing vipassana meditation since 2001. She, Gil Fronsdal, and Susie Harrington are the co-founders and core faculty for the Sati Center Buddhist Eco-Chaplaincy training program. Those interested in joining the program in the future are invited to contact them at . The second training will begin in July 2021, with applications opening winter of 2020-21.

Kokuu Andy McLellan is a transmitted teacher in the Rempo Niwa-Gudō Nishijima lineage of Sōtō Zen. They previously worked as a plant biologist in the Institute for Environmental Science at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, but a career in science was cut short due to the onset of a chronic illness that continues to this day. Their interests in Buddhist practice are divided between supporting sangha with physical illness and disability, and exploring the use of the buddhadharma in helping us to work with current environmental crises. They have an ongoing project to record audio readings of the Shōbōgenzō of Eihei Dōgen, a key Sōtō Zen text, and other Buddhist teachings, for those who struggle to read print text for any reason. These recordings can be found on Soundcloud.

Kokuu’s home sangha, Treeleaf Zendo, has pioneered online Zen practice over the last two decades, including priest training for those unable to access traditional training, through the Monastery of Open Doors.

Lama Rod Owens is a Black Buddhist Southern Queen. An international influencer with a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School. Author of The New Saints: From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors and Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger, and co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation, his teachings center on freedom, self-expression, and radical self-care. A leading voice in a new generation of Buddhist teachers with over 11 years of experience, Lama Rod activates the intersections of his identity to create a platform that’s very natural, engaging, and inclusive. Applauded for his mastery in balancing weighty topics with a sense of lightness, the Queen has been featured by various national and international news outlets. Highly sought after for talks, retreats, and workshops, his mission is showing you how to heal and free yourself.

Dr. Larry Ward is a senior teacher in Buddhist Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village tradition. He brings twenty five years of international experience in organizational change and local community renewal to his work as director of the Lotus Institute and as an advisor to the Executive Mind Leadership Institute at the Drucker School of Management. He holds a PhD in Religious Studies with an emphasis on Buddhism and the neuroscience of meditation. Larry is a knowledgeable, charismatic and inspirational teacher, offering insights with personal stories and resounding clarity that express his dharma name, “True Great Sound.” He is a co-founder, with Dr. Peggy Rowe Ward, of The Lotus Institute.  Peggy and Larry are co-authors of the book, Love’s Garden: A Guide to Mindful Relationships. Larry is the author of America’s Racial Karma.

Lion’s Roar is an independent non-profit foundation whose mission is to communicate Buddhist wisdom and practices in order to benefit people’s lives and our society, and to support the development of Buddhism in the modern world.

Lyla June is an Indigenous musician, scholar, and community organizer of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) and European lineages. Her multi-genre presentation style has engaged audiences across the globe towards personal, collective, and ecological healing. She blends her study of Human Ecology at Stanford, graduate work in Indigenous Pedagogy, and the traditional worldview she grew up with to inform her music, perspectives and solutions. She recently finished her PhD on the ways in which pre-colonial Indigenous Nations shaped large regions of Turtle Island (aka the Americas) to produce abundant food systems for humans and non-humans.

Mark has been devoted to the Dharma, to study, service, and practice, since his mid-twenties. His passion and curiosity led him first to India, where he lived briefly as a monk of the Ramakrishna Order, and later to Devon, where he served as a coordinator at both the Barn Retreat and Gaia House. Mark is a founding trustee of Freely Given Retreats and a co-initiator of the Dharma Action Network for Climate Engagement (DANCE). His training to teach Insight Meditation has been under Rob Burbea, with whom he has studied and practised since 2010.

Mark has been chasing the dharma since the early 1970s when he lived in Nepal as a Peace Corps volunteer, and eventually joined sanghas and studied with teachers in both the Zen and Shambhala Buddhist traditions. He has worked in the international health field for more than 30 years, including two long-term assignments in Vietnam managing assistance to war victims and other disabled people. It was while living in Vietnam in 2015 that he discovered One Earth Sangha online and immediately connected with the EcoSattva vision. Back home in Washington, he has helped One Earth Sangha organize local Buddhist community support for the People’s Climate Mobilization and recent climate strikes.

Marty Janowitz became a student of the Venerable Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche in 1970, and studied and taught under his guidance and now that of his lineage heir, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. He has striven to serve their vision towards the realization of enlightened society, human communities that at their core express the heart of goodness in action. In that he has long been dedicated to integrating the paths of inner and societal wisdom with particular interest in environmental transformation. He has taught on a wide array of Kagyu-Nyingma and Shambhala topics, more recently focused on sacred activism and sustainability. He has been engaged within and beyond the Shambhala community in environmental and social sustainability initiatives including as Chair of the Nova Scotia Roundtable on Environment and Sustainable Prosperity, the Authentic Leadership Center at Naropa University, the Nova Scotia Nature Trust, Halifax Strategic Urban Partnership and various Buddhist and interfaith climate change, environmental and social efforts.

Mary Evelyn Tucker is co-director of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology with her husband, John Grim. They are affiliated faculty with the Yale Center for Environmental Justice at the Yale School of the Environment.

Matthieu Ricard is a Buddhist monk who had a promising career in cellular genetics before leaving France thirty-five years ago to study Buddhism in the Himalayas. He is an author, translator, and has been a participant in scientific research on the effects that meditation has on the brain. Ricard’s work is held high regard in intellectual circles in Europe, and two books he co-authored, The Monk and the Philosopher and The Quantum and the Lotus, are best-sellers in France. He lives in Tibet and Nepal.

Melissa Hoffer is an attorney specializing in environmental law. She currently serves in the Biden administration as Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Environmental Protection Agency. She previously served as the chief of the Energy & Environment Bureau in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, where she oversaw enforcement of environmental laws, protected ratepayer interests, and supported federal regulations addressing emissions of mercury, air toxins, and greenhouse gases. Prior to joining the Attorney General’s Office, Melissa served for over five years as a vice president of Conservation Law Foundation. She is a practitioner in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

Melvin McLeod is the Editor-in-Chief of Lion’s Roar magazine and Buddhadharma.

Dr. Michael Yellow Bird, MSW, PhD, is the Dean and Professor of the Faculty of Social Work residing and working on Treaty One territory at the University of Manitoba. He’s an enrolled member of the MHA Nation in North Dakota, USA and is a certified mindfulness teacher/professional and a member of the International Mindfulness Teachers Association. With a rich academic background, he’s held positions at various universities, including the University of British Columbia, University of Kansas, and Arizona State University. His research areas encompass colonization’s impact, decolonization methods, ancestral health, intermittent fasting, Indigenous mindfulness, and more. Michael also consults, trains, and advises BIPOC mindfulness groups striving to integrate mindfulness into Indigenous and decolonized contexts to combat systemic racism. His professional and academic mindfulness and neurodecolonization website can be found at:Indigenous Mindfulness

Michelle King is a Learning Instigator, Love Activist, and Transformer. Her origin story is rooted in being an Army Brat, child of an Ethiopian immigrant, and teaching middle school for over 22 years in public schools in Southwestern PA. She learned and honed her craft in Mt. Lebanon for over 16 years plus five years at The Environmental Charter School. Her current interests are in game-based-learning, design, justice, equity, the environment and teacher empowerment. Currently through her varied partnerships, she is seeking to co-create dynamic learning experiences and opportunities that inspire wonder, discovery, contradictions, frustrations, and joy. Current Conundrums: What do humans need to learn now? How might we create empathetic institutions that remind us of our humanity? How might we re-design for equity and social justice in and out of school learning? How might we allow those connections to help us re-see the worlds we inhabit? How might we co-create the Beloved Community in this lifetime?

Mushim Patricia Ikeda is an internationally-known secular mindfulness and Buddhist teacher working primarily with justice activists and Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) meditation practitioners. A core teacher at East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, California, she is an author whose writing has been published in Lion’s Roar, Tricycle, Buddhadharma and various anthologies. She is the founding and guiding teacher of EBMC’s Practice in Transformative Action, a yearlong program now in its ninth year, providing secular mindfulness training for justice activists and agents of change.

Myokei Caine-Barrett, Shonin, was the first American woman and the first person of African Japanese descent to receive full ordination as a Nichiren priest. Today, she is the bishop of the Nichiren Shu Buddhist Order of North America. Based in Houston, where she is the guiding teacher of Myoken-ji Temple, she also leads two prison sanghas. She currently serves on the boards of Lion’s Roar and Dharma Relief 2 (a project providing financial support for Buddhist Teachers of Black African Descent). She is also involved in the Garden Initiative, a mentoring project for Black Women Religious Leaders. She has been active in Healing Warrior Hearts (a program for veterans returning home) and The Gathering: Buddhist Teachers of Black African Descent. Myokei Shonin recently became 1 of 3 westerners to participate in Aragyo (austerities practice) in Okayama and become a Saijo Inari priest.

Natalie Avalos is an assistant professor in the Ethnic Studies department at University of Colorado Boulder. She is an ethnographer of religion who received her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara with a special focus on Native American and Indigenous Religious Traditions and Tibetan Buddhism. She is currently working on her manuscript titled The Metaphysics of Decoloniality: Transnational Indigeneities and Religious Refusal, which explores urban Indian and Tibetan refugee religious life as decolonial praxis. She is a Chicana of Apache descent, born and raised in the Bay Area.

nico hase lived in a monastery for six years before earning a PhD in counseling psychology and becoming an Insight Meditation teacher full time. He currently mentors mindfulness teachers, teaches online and in-person retreats, and speaks with students in one-on-one sessions. He and his beloved life partner devon are the authors of How Not to Be a Hot Mess: A Survival Guide for Modern Life.

Nicola Redfern is an Insight Dialogue teacher with an extensive background in both Zen and Vipassana meditation. She has been trained to teach Insight Dialogue by founding teacher Gregory Kramer. With a strong belief that awakening is not simply a solo endeavor, Nicola is particularly interested in getting meditation off the cushion and fully integrated into life, work, and relationships. She has also taught Nonviolent Communication and co-teaches courses on unlearning racism. Nicola lives in Santa Fe, NM.

Noliwe Alexander has been a student of Vipassana meditation for close to 20 years. She is a Life & Business Coach dedicating both her coaching & Dharma practice to the POC, LGBT, At Risk and Elder communities. Noliwe is a teacher in training with Spirit Rock and an assistant teacher on CDL6. Noliwe is a wisdom keeper and humbled by the presence of her ancestor’s spirit that lives within and walks beside her.

Nomi Green is a member of the Order of Interbeing.

Norman Fischer is a poet, author and former Abbott of the San Francisco Zen Center. He is a strong advocate for inter-religious dialogue and the founding teacher of the Everyday Zen Foundation.

North Atlantic Books (NAB) is an independent nonprofit publisher committed to a bold exploration of the relationships between mind, body, spirit, culture, and nature.

One Earth Sangha strives to support humanity in a transformative response to ecological crises based on the insights and practices of the Buddhist tradition. Learn more about our team or our mission and history.

Now retired after 33 years as a nurse-midwife, Osa makes home in the Sandia mountain foothills, working toward increasing reciprocity with the high desert landscape. Lizards, coyotes, snakes and tarantulas are neighbors and teachers, also clouds, juniper, rock and soils sandy and clay-heavy. This mind is currently most supported and compelled by human teachers Susie Harrington, Sebene Selassie, Lama Cynthia Jurs, Adrienne M. Brown and BLM activists.

Pamela Ayo Yetunde, J.D., Th.D., is a Community Dharma Leader, pastoral counselor and teaches pastoral care and counseling. Ayo is the co-editor of Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us About Race, Resilience, Transformation and Freedom. She has written for Buddhadharma, Lion’s Roar, and Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, and is the co-founder of Center of the Heart. Ayo, along with BIPOC Zen and Insight practitioners in the Twin Cities, founded Buddhist Justice Reporter: The George Floyd Trials.

Dr. Peggy Rowe Ward is the co-founder of The Lotus Institute, a senior teacher in Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village tradition of Engaged Buddhism, and the author of Love’s Garden: A Guide To Mindful Relationships. She has her doctorate in adult education and an MA in counseling psychology. Through meditation, movement, and art, Peggy offers a path of deep insight that enables her students to discover and embody their most creative and authentic selves.

“Pema Düddul is the Buddhist Chaplain in the University of Southern Queensland’s Multi-Faith Service and the Co-Director of Jalü Buddhist Meditation Centre (both in Australia). Pema has been a Buddhist for forty years, practicing in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition for more than half of that time. Pema has received teachings from masters in all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism, and considers Dudjom Rinpoche, Jigdral Yeshe Dorje (1904-1987), to be his Heart Lama. In 2005 he received the tantric vows of a ngakpa, the Tibetan Buddhist equivalent of a non-monastic religious minister, from one of his principal teachers, Ngakpa Karma Lhundup Rinpoche. Pema is the co-author of Resting in Stillness, a collection of writings about dharma penned with Martin Jamyang Tenphel, his partner and Co-Director of Jalü Buddhist Meditation Centre.
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Pennie Opal Plant is one of the co-founders of Idle No More SF Bay, a co-founder of Movement Rights and a signatory of the Indigenous Women of the Americas Defending Mother Earth Treaty. She has worked for over 35 years to ensure that the sacred system of life continues in a manner that is safe, sustainable and healthy. Her mother is Yaqui and Mexican, her father undocumented Choctaw, Cherokee and European. No members of her family have ever lived on a reservation. She lives in unincorporated Contra Costa County and sees the Chevron refinery in Richmond, California every day.

Plum Village is a monastery and mindfulness practice center in the southwest France founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in 1982.

Radhule Weininger, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and teacher of Buddhist meditation and Buddhist psychology. She is the co-founder and guiding teacher of the non-profit, Mindful Heart Programs. She is the author of Heartwork: The Path of Self-Compassion and Heart Medicine: How to Stop Painful Patterns and Find Freedom and Peace-at Last. Her website is radhuleweiningerphd.com.

Ratnadevi is a mindfulness teacher, teacher trainer, life coach, yoga instructor and artist, based in Glasgow. She has been practising meditation for 35 years and has been teaching in Scotland and internationally over the last 30 years. She is a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order and combines the experience and depth of her Buddhist practise with a non-religious approach to teaching mindfulness. She is a founder of Living Mindfulness and author of Bringing Mindfulness to Life.

Raymond Lam is senior writer at Buddhistdoor Global and editor of its “Buddhism in the People’s Republic” project. Born in Hong Kong, he read religion and philosophy at The University of Queensland in Brisbane, and Buddhist Studies at The School of Oriental and African Studies in London. A Mahayana Buddhist layman since 2008, he became a religion journalist and began working for the Buddhistdoor organisation in 2010.

Rebecca Henderson is one of 25 University Professors at Harvard, a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a fellow of both the British Academy and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She also has more than twenty-five years of major public board experience. Rebecca’s research explores the degree to which the private sector can play a major role in building a more sustainable economy. Her publications include Accelerating Energy Innovation: Insights from Multiple Sectors (University of Chicago Press), Leading Sustainable Change: An Organizational Perspective (Oxford University Press) and Political Economy and Justice (University of Chicago Press). She is also the author of Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire which was shortlisted for the FT/McKinsey 2020 Business Book of the Year Award.

Rebecca Solnit is a writer, historian, and activist. Most recently, she edited Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility.

Renée Lertzman is an applied social scientist with expertise in environmental engagement and climate communications. Informed by her practice in the Insight tradition, she teaches and consults in the emerging field of climate psychology and is author of Environmental Melancholia: Psychoanalytic Dimensions of Engagement. Learn more about Renée’s work at ReneeLertzman.com

An internationally-sought-after mindfulness teacher and keynote speaker, and a thought and practice innovator of mindfulness-based social justice principles, concepts and practices, Rhonda V. Magee, M.A., J.D., is Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Contemplative Law and Ethics at the University of San Francisco. The author and teacher of The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness, Rhonda’s work explores the inner-to-outer practices that support us in meeting and transforming all forms of suffering and injustice. To learn more visit RhondaVMagee.com.

Rob Burbea (1965-2020) was Gaia House’s much-loved resident teacher for 10 years from 2005 – 2015, when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. During his time at Gaia House, Rob wrote Seeing That Frees: Meditations on Emptiness and Dependent Arising – an important and influential work that continues to shape and open the meditative exploration of many. Emerging from this deep experiential understanding of emptiness, Rob dedicated much of his time and energy during the last years of his life to conceiving, developing, and establishing a new body of teachings that he called ‘A Soulmaking Dharma’. Before his death, Rob initiated The Hermes Amāra Foundation (HAF), a sangha-led organisation that is being established to preserve and develop Rob’s vast Dharma teaching legacy. Rob was also a guiding teacher of Freely Given Retreats; a co-founder of SanghaSeva, an organisation exploring the Dharma through international service work; and a co-initiator of DANCE, the Dharma Action Network for Climate Engagement.

Robert Baker Dairyu Chotan Aitken Rōshi (June 19, 1917 – August 5, 2010) was a Zen teacher in the Harada-Yasutani lineage. He co-founded the Honolulu Diamond Sangha in 1959 together with his wife, Anne Hopkins Aitken. Aitken received Dharma transmission from Koun Yamada in 1985 but decided to live as a layperson. He was a socialist advocating social justice for gays, women and Native Hawaiians throughout his life, and was one of the original founders of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship.

Dr. Ron Purser is Professor of Management in the College of Business at San Francisco State University. His essays and cultural criticism have appeared in the Huffington Post, Salon, Alternet, Tikkun, and Tricycle magazine. His viral article, “Beyond McMindfulness“, opened the floodgates for the mindfulness backlash. Author of eight books, his recent books include the Handbook of Mindfulness: Culture, Context and Social Engagement and the Handbook of Ethical Foundations of Mindfulness. Prof. Purser’s writings have been exploring the challenges and issues of introducing mindfulness into secular contexts, particularly with regards to its encounter with modernity, Western consumer capitalism, and individualism. Dr. Purser is an ordained Zen Dharma Teacher in the Korean Zen Taego order of Buddhism.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer lives on the banks of the wild San Miguel River in southwest Colorado with her husband and daughter. She co-hosts Emerging Form (a podcast on creative process), Secret Agents of Change (a surreptitious kindness cabal) and Soul Writer’s Circle. Her poetry has appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, PBS News Hour, O Magazine, American Life in Poetry, on Carnegie Hall stage, and on river rocks she leaves around town. Her collection Hush won the Halcyon Prize. Naked for Tea was a finalist for the Able Muse Book Award. She believes in practice, and since 2006, she’s written a poem a day. These can be read on her blog, A Hundred Falling Veils. Her daily audio series, The Poetic Path, can be found on the Ritual app on your phone. Her new book for writers, Exploring Poetry of Presence II: Prompts to deepen your writing practice is available the first week of May, 2023. Her most recent poetry collection is All the Honey.

Rosie Bell is a writer working primarily in public climate narrative and the inner dimension of sustainability, with collaborators such as the Climate Majority Project, Life Itself Institute, and the Mindfulness Initiative.

Rupert Marques has a background in environmental and outdoor education. He has practiced in the insight meditation tradition for over 25 years in Europe, America and Asia, and teaches in Europe and beyond. Rupert also trained with The School of Lost Borders in contemporary wilderness rites of passage and now trains others in this work. He spent 4 years living and working at Ecodharma, a contemplative community in the Spanish Pyrenees dedicated to exploring the role of the Dharma in the movements for social justice and ecological sustainability. He works with individuals and organizations offering a range of retreats and trainings with a particular interest in exploring the intersection of contemplative practice with nature-based practice.

Ryan is an undergraduate at UC Berkeley studying Comparative Literature with a particular interest in 20th century critical theory. Her formal meditation practice, begun at the beginning of 2020, remains relatively new, but she has felt drawn to the grounded ‘here-ness’ of various Buddhist meditation practices for years. Ryan believes strongly in the urgency of contemporary spaces that nourish modes of reflection and contemplation for individual and social wellbeing, and in fact survival. She feels grateful to work with One Earth Sangha in cultivating such a space through the dharma, and for the exposure to dharma teachers who face the climate crisis with eyes wide open. Ryan is from San Francisco, but currently lives in (the absurdly beautiful) North Berkeley.

Sam Mowe is Tricycle: The Buddhist Review‘s publisher. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Santacitta Bhikkhuni 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. Since 2002, she has also received teachings in the lineage of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. 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 at Aloka Earth Room, currently located in San Rafael, CA.

Sarah C. Beasley (Sera Kunzang Lhamo), Nautilus Gold award-winning author of Kindness for All Creatures: Buddhist Advice for Compassionate Animal Care (Shambhala 2019), has been a Nyingma practitioner since 2000. Sarah is a Certified Teacher, and an experienced writer and artist, with an MA in Educational Leadership and a BA in Studio Art. Sarah spent six years in traditional retreat under the guidance of Lama Tharchin Rinpoche and Thinley Norbu Rinpoche. With a lifelong passion for wilderness, she has summited Mt. Kenya and Mt. Baker, among other peaks.

Dr. Sarah Jaquette Ray is chair and professor of Environmental Studies at Cal Poly Humboldt in Arcata, California, on Wiyot land. She works at the intersection of emotions and climate justice. Her first book, The Ecological Other: Environmental Exclusion in American Culture, explores the role of the emotion of disgust in pitting U.S. environmentalism against movements for social justice. Her second book, A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet, explores the role of emotions (joy, despair, guilt, etc) in climate justice activism and is “an existential toolkit for the climate generation.” She is a 2022 graduate of the UCLA Mindfulness Teacher training, and offers a mindfulness course to transform climate anxiety through Pacific Mindfulness. In 2024, Dr. Ray published an edited volume with Jennifer Atkinson, The Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators: How to Teach in a Burning World.

Sarah Vekasi, M. Div., well knows what it is to be on the ground organizing for social justice. As a member of the national network of trained facilitators of The Work That Reconnects, created by Joanna Macy, and a long-time engaged environmentalist, Vekasi addresses the importance of a mindful approach to  the path ahead that recalls  the title of Thích Nhất Hạnh’s book on walking meditation: The Long Road Turns to Joy.

Satya Robyn is a writer, a psychotherapist, a Buddhist priest, and a member of Extinction Rebellion, seeking to bring about needed change in our human relationship with the earth. More on her life and work can be found at her website, www.satyarobyn.com. Her Dear Earth series on Buddhistdoor offers writings from the heart, touching on both the devastation that humans have wrought on the earth and the beautiful possibilities for transformation within each of us as individuals and of our interconnected societies.

Kritee (dharma name Kanko) is a Climate Scientist, Zen Buddhist priest, Educator & Founding Spiritual Director of Boundless in Motion, a 501(c) nonprofit based in Boulder (Colorado). She served as a Senior Scientist in the Climate Smart Agriculture program at Environmental Defense Fund for  about 12 years. She is also an ordained teacher in the Rinzai Zen lineage of Cold Mountain and a co-founder of Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center. She has served as faculty for courses or retreats at the intersection of Climate justice, Trauma healing and Spirituality for many organizations including Stanford University, World Council of Churches, San Francisco Zen Center, Mind & Life Institute, One Earth Sangha, Al Gore’s Climate Reality.  Her articles, podcasts and interviews have appeared in the New York Times, BBC, Washington Post, Harvard Health, Yale Climate Connections, California Public Radio and Post Carbon Institute (See a few here). For more information, visit her website.

Shaun Bartone practices engaged Buddhism as a humanist spirituality. Shaun is an independent dharma scholar and dharmaecologist. Many teachers have shaped and inspired his passion for engaged Buddhism, including Joanna Macy, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, angel Kyodo williams, Sulak Sivaraksa, David Loy, Thích Nhất Hạnh, and the 17th Karmapa.

Singhashri is a queer, Latinx-American Dharma teacher and writer ordained in the Triratna Buddhist Community. She teaches mindfulness and compassion as means to awakening to love, beauty and truth and has committed her life to supporting collective healing and transformation and the joy and freedom found there. She currently lives in London with her partner.

Sister Jewel (Chan Chau Nghiem) grew up in the US and Kenya, in an intentional community that practiced simple living and engaged in village development projects worldwide. She remembers contests with the other children on who could use the least amount of water for bathing. She was ordained as a nun by Thích Nhất Hạnh in 1999. She will spend the first half of 2015 teaching mindfulness courses at Schumacher College in the UK, an environmental college for graduate students, and then lead mindfulness retreats in Europe and the US.

Sister True Dedication, a former journalist, is a Zen Buddhist nun ordained by Thích Nhất Hạnh. She is the editor of his latest book, Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet (2021), as well as his books The Art of Living (2017) and Love Letters to the Earth (2013).

Sneha Poddar is an Associate Research Fellow at Georgetown Institute of Open and Advanced Studies, a Committee member of the Global Soil Health Programme at the University of Glasgow, and an adjunct faculty member at the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives Ladakh. Her current research focus is on creating a One Earth Balance Sheet and an integrated school of thought in the field of economics and human development. She is a columnist for Asia News Network and an author of various articles, research papers and book chapters. Her website is here.

Spring Washam is a well-known meditation teacher, author, and visionary leader based in California. She is the author of The Spirit of Harriet Tubman: Awakening From The Underground and A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Courage, and Wisdom in Any Moment. Spring is one of the founders and teachers at the East Bay Meditation Center, located in downtown Oakland, CA. She received extensive training by Jack Kornfield, is a member of the teacher’s council at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in northern California, and has practiced and studied Buddhist philosophy in both the Theravada and Tibetan schools of Buddhism since 1998. She is also a shamanic practitioner and has studied indigenous healing practices for over a decade. She is the founder of Lotus Vine Journeys, an organization that blends indigenous healing practices with Buddhist wisdom.

Steffi Bednarek is is a consultant in climate psychology and founder and director of the Centre for Climate, Psychology & Change. Her work explores the intersection between climate change, complexity thinking and the human Psyche and aims to bring Soul back into life, work and relationships. She is the editor of the book Climate, Psychology and Change.

Steven Seigan Miron is a lay dharma student at Zen Mountain Monastery. As a researcher and publisher, his professional work addresses climate change-related displacement as a social justice issue.

Zen Mountain Monastery is located in the Catskills region of New York State. Established by the late John Daido Loori Roshi, it is part of the Mountain and Rivers Order, which also includes the Zen Center of New York and affiliate groups.

Sumi Loundon Kim is the Buddhist chaplain at Yale University and founder of the Mindful Families of Durham. She is editor of the anthologies Blue Jean Buddha and The Buddha’s Apprentices, and the author of Sitting Together: A Family-Centered Curriculum on Mindfulness, Meditation, and Buddhist Teachings.

Suzy Loeffler is a Massage Therapist who integrates diverse body work and somatic techniques to help clients connect to the unique healing capacity they possess. She spends as much time as possible exploring the natural world, and weaves this relationship into all of her work. Writing has become a practice that allows her to listen more deeply to all that arises and express what she discovers in that spaciousness.

Tashi has been a Buddhist practitioner since 2015, and he spent 18 months as a temporary monastic at Gampo Abbey. His practice has helped him recognize the awesome magnitude of the ecological crisis, as well as its deep interpenetration with racial, gender, economic, and other forms of injustice. He is most interested in person-to-person transformation of ecological and social consciousness, as well as the great spiritual potential of this radically uncertain time. He began volunteering with One Earth Sangha in 2018 and served as Assistant Director until 2024.

Thanissara embodies the integration of the contemplative with the activist. Trained in the Ajahn Chah Forest Tradition, she was a monastic for 12 years. She and husband Kittisaro founded Dharmagiri in South Africa where they integrated activism on AIDS with hosting Theravadan retreats. As senior teachers at Spirit Rock, Thanissara and Kittisaro later co-founded Sacred Mountain Sangha based in California. She has an MA in Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy from the UK, and is author of several books, including Time to Stand Up: An Engaged Buddhist Manifesto for Our Earth — The Buddha’s Life and Message through Feminine Eyes.

The Loka Initiative is an education and outreach platform for faith leaders and religious institutions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Thích Nhất Hạnh was a world-renowned spiritual teacher and peace activist. Over seven decades of teaching, he published more than 100 books, including Be Free Where You Are and No Mud, No Lotus. He established the international Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism in France, now the largest Buddhist monastery in Europe and the heart of a growing community of mindfulness practice centers around the world. He passed away in 2022 at the age of 95 at his root temple, Tu Hieu, in Hue, Vietnam.

Tiffani Gyatso is an artist from Brazil who has focused her field of study on the sacred expressions of art from different cultures. She specializes in traditional Tibetan thangka painting, which she learned in India at the Norbulingka Institute from 2003–06, before furthering her studies at the Prince School of Traditional Arts in London, where she studied Sacred Geometry of the Middle East. Today she runs her own art retreat center at the Atelier YabYum in the mountains of Brazil and guides art groups to India and Nepal. Geometry of Life is published bimonthly.

Tilly Campbell-Allen was first immersed in Buddhism during the early 1980s when her family received Tibetan geshes to live in her London home, and, as a mother of three and after fifteen years living in rural France, she continues that spiritual legacy, though her areas of interest extend far beyond her Buddhist roots. She enjoys exploring the philosophical, spiritual, natural and historical depths of local narratives and mythologies, the nature of reality at the micro and macro level, mind and body health, symbols and magic. She is a writer and artist whose divinity artwork is currently owned by a growing number of collectors worldwide.

Tim Ream is a long-time Earth activist and Soto Zen practitioner. He received lay ordination from Tenshin Reb Anderson in 1994 and has engaged since in repeated, intensive residential practice, mostly at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center and Green Gulch Farm. Tim is an organizer, campaigner, writer, and environmental attorney. His activism ranges from direct action and civil disobedience like tree-sitting and road blockading to successful lawsuits to protect wolves and other species. He is the author of Fallen Water: A novel of Zen and Earth.

Vivian Mac is the Operations Coordinator at New York Insight Meditation Center. She recently graduated from Amherst College, where she wrote a thesis called “Where Inner Change Meets Social Change: Connecting Contemplative Practices and Social Justice in Higher Education.” She aspires to find her way in healing herself and the world, in whichever way that unfolds!

Wendy Johnson is a Buddhist meditation teacher and organic gardening mentor who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Wendy has been practicing Zen meditation for thirty-five years and has led meditation retreats nationwide since 1992 as an ordained lay dharma teacher in the traditions of Vietnamese teacher Thích Nhất Hạnh and the San Francisco Zen Center. Wendy is one of the founders of the organic Farm and Garden Program at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in Marin County, where she lived with her family from 1975 to 2000. She has been teaching gardening and environmental education to the public since the early 1980s.

William Edelglass is Director of Studies at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. He also teaches at Smith College, where he is the Director of the Five College Tibetan Studies Program in India, and is adjunct professor at the Central University for Tibetan Studies in Sarnath, India. His scholarship explores questions in Buddhist studies, environmental humanities, and philosophy. William has practiced in several different Buddhist traditions and has taught widely in dharma centers, academia, as a wilderness guide, and in several Tibetan academic institutions in India. William’s most recent book is The Routledge Handbook of Indian Buddhist Philosophy.

Yale Climate Connections is a nonpartisan, multimedia service providing daily broadcast radio programming and original web-based reporting, commentary, and analysis on the issue of climate change, one of the greatest challenges and stories confronting modern society.

Yanai Postelnik has been engaged in full-time dharma practice and service since 1990. His practice and teaching are inspired by the Thai forest tradition and nourished by time spent in the natural world. Yanai has been teaching retreats around the world for 20 years. He serves as a guiding teacher of Gaia House, England and a core faculty member of Insight Meditation Society, Massachusetts. He is actively involved in Extinction Rebellion protests in the UK.

Zac Ispa-Landa is a Dharma teacher and a Senior Lecturer in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont. At the University, he teaches courses on ecology, environmental justice, mindfulness in the Anthropocene, natural history, critical reflection and dialogue, honey bee biology and beekeeping, and sustainability. He teaches mindfulness at Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, Inward Bound Mindfulness, MIT Sloan School, the Burlington Dharma Collective, and Bhumisparsha. He began meditating and studying Dharma twenty years ago, inspired by a vision of personal and collective liberation, and has spent thousands of hours in meditation and hundreds of days on retreat since. He began mindfulness practice with vipassana (Insight) meditation and, in recent years, has been practicing Vajrayana (tantric) Buddhism with Lama Rod Owens, who he’s worked and taught with since 2017. Zac lives Winooski, Vermont with his partner, son, and tens of thousands of honeybees.

Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, author, poet, and ordained Zen Buddhist priest is the dharma heir of the late Zenkei Blanche Hartman in the Shunryu Suzuki Roshi lineage. Zenju Osho is the author of The Shamanic Bones of Zen, The Deepest Peace, Sanctuary, The Way of Tenderness, and Tell Me Something About Buddhism. A California native, she lives in New Mexico.

Zhiwa Woodbury is a panpsychologist (panpsychism-informed psychology), visionary and long time advocate for all things natural and wild. He studied Thermodynamics, Science/Math and Communications at Southern Illinois University before obtaining a doctorate in Natural Law (1983). After a successful career advocating for wildlife and wild places, he returned to school and obtained an M.A. in East/West Psychology, with an emphasis on quantum eco-psychology and spiritual counseling, and also trained and served at world-renowned Zen Hospice in San Francisco. Zhiwa is a vajrayana practitioner who follows Hua-Yen philosophy and practices Kalacakra tantrayana. He is the author of Climate Sense ~ Changing the Way We Think & Feel About Our Climate in Crisis, and two influential lead articles in the peer reviewed journal Ecopsychology: “Climate Crisis & the Cosmic Bomb: Is the American Dream an Expression of Cultural Trauma” (Dec. 2015) and “Climate Trauma: Towards a New Taxonomy of Trauma” (March 2019).