EcoDharma Teacher Course

Ashanti Kunene is an epistemic activist, slam poet, decolonial dialogue facilitator, published writer, and the founder of Learning 2 Unlearn. She is interested in how cultural narratives are reflected through big data and technology; and how pedagogical design and dialogical narrative change work can be used as decolonial tools to create social change.

Rooted with the Yoruba people in a more-than-human world, Bayo Akomolafe is a father, life-partner, posthumanist thinker, essayist, poet, teacher, public intellectual, and the author of two books. He is the founder of The Emergence Network, a global initiative that seeks to convene communities in new ways in response to the civilizational challenges we face as a species, and he is host of the postactivist course/festival/event, “We Will Dance with Mountains.” Dr. Akomolafe currently lectures at Pacifica Graduate Institute, California, and has held several other appointments at prestigious institutions, including the Aspen Institute, UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute, the Schumacher Centre for New Economics, and the Council of an Uncertain Human Future. The recipient of several recent awards for his global contributions, he is also a member of the Club of Rome, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and an ambassador for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. Bayo Akomolafe is currently the Hubert Humphrey Distinguished Professor of American Studies in Macalester College, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA (August 2025). Click HERE to learn more about Bayo Akomolafe.

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 Unthinkable Times 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.

David Robert Loy is Director Emeritus and Cofounder 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.

Dougald Hine is a social thinker, writer and speaker. After an early career as a BBC journalist, he co-founded organisations including the Dark Mountain Project and a school called HOME. He has collaborated with scientists, artists and activists, serving as a leader of artistic development at Riksteatern (Sweden’s national theatre) and as an associate of the Centre for Environment and Development Studies at Uppsala University. His latest book is At Work in the Ruins: Finding Our Place in the Time of Science, Climate Change, Pandemics & All the Other Emergencies (2023). He co-hosts The Great Humbling podcast and publishes a Substack called Writing Home.

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

G (Guhyapati) has been working at the intersection of social activism, dharma, and ecological learning for 40 years. In the early 2000’s he founded the Ecodharma Centre where he pioneered training and retreats integrating contemplative practice, activism, and ecology. In 2017 he envisioned and founded the Ulex Project, building that into a collective project that provides training and capacity building support for social movements across Europe. He is known for highly innovative work blending pedagogical methodologies and innovating the approach known as Integral Activist Training. This holistic approach to activist learning has inspired numerous training initiatives across Europe. He currently steers the strategic development of the Ulex Project and its social movement capacity building programme and is devising a year-long Deeper Resources for Action programme, that seeks to harness radical dharma to empower socio-political activism.

Dr. Katharine Wilkinson is an author, strategist, teacher, and one of 15 “women who will save the world,” according to Time magazine. She is co-founder and executive director of The All We Can Save Project, nurturing the leaderful climate community we need for a life-giving future, and co-host of the podcast A Matter of Degrees, telling stories for the climate curious with Dr. Leah Stokes. Her books on climate include the bestselling anthology All We Can Save, The Drawdown Review, the New York Times bestseller Drawdown, and Between God & Green. Previously, Dr. Wilkinson was the principal writer and editor-in-chief at Project Drawdown. She speaks widely, including at National Geographic, Skoll World Forum, and the United Nations. Her popular TED Talk on climate and gender equality has more than 1.9 million views, and Apolitical named her one of the “100 most influential people in gender policy.” A former Rhodes Scholar and frequent visiting professor, Dr. Wilkinson holds a doctorate in geography and environment from Oxford and a bachelors in religion from Sewanee. She is a homegrown Atlantan, happiest on a mountain or a horse. Find her @‌DrKWilkinson.

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. 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.

Sera Thompson is a social innovator and master facilitator whose work is focused on building capacity for participatory leadership and creating movement around complex issues. Her work creatively engages a diversity of players and stakeholders in finding shared clarity and timely actions. She began her career in the complex field of Environmental Consulting, juggling the needs of diverse stakeholders balancing economic, ecological and social sustainability. Since that time she has successfully led change with dozens of organizations on four continents in the Public Sector, Academia, Non-profit and Corporate sectors. Learn more here.

Sister True Dedication is a former journalist and monastic Dharma Teacher ordained by Thich Nhat Hanh. The editor and author of the commentary in Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet, Sister True Dedication has been a Zen Buddhist nun since 2008. Before entering the monastery, Sister True Dedication studied History and Political Thought at Cambridge University and worked as a journalist for BBC News in London. In the early years of her monastic training, she assisted Thich Nhat Hanh and Sister Chan Khong in their engaged Buddhist actions for human rights, religious freedom, applied ethics, and ecology. She is co-founder of the international Wake Up Movement, a community of young meditators who are finding new ways to combine mindfulness and engaged Buddhism. Today, she contributes her time and energy to guiding a new generation of young monastics and to editing Thich Nhat Hanh’s writings, in particular his recent books on Buddhism and ecology, including Love Letter to the Earth (2013), The Art of Living (2017), and Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet (2021).

Sophie Strand is a writer based in the Hudson Valley who focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. Her poems and essays have appeared in numerous projects and publications, including Spirituality & Health, Atmos, Braided Way, and Art PAPERS. She is the author of The Flowering Wand, The Madonna Secret, and the forthcoming memoir The Body Is a Doorway as well as the creator of the popular Substack “Make Me Good Soil.” You can follow her work on Instagram @‌cosmogyny.

Vanessa Machado de Oliveira is the former Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria and former Canada Research Chair in Race, Inequalities and Global Change at the University of British Columbia. She is a Brazilian/Canadian educator, artist, and researcher who has spent over three decades tracing the architecture and aftershocks of modernity: its promises, violences, and delusions of separation. Her work invites a reckoning with the ontological assumptions driving systemic harm and extinction-level thinking. She has published more than 100 academic papers and is the author of Hospicing Modernity and Outgrowing Modernity, co-author of Burnout From Humans: A Little Book About AI That Is Not About AI, and a co-weaver of the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures arts and research collective.