The EcoSattva Training

Kazu Haga is a trainer and practitioner of nonviolence and restorative justice, a core member of the Fierce Vulnerability Network, a founding core member of the Ahimsa Collective, a Jam facilitator and author of Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm and Fierce Vulnerability: Healing from Trauma, Emerging through Collapse. He works with incarcerated people, youth, and activists from around the country and has over 25 years of experience in nonviolence and social change work. He is a resident of the Canticle Farm community on Lisjan Ohlone land, Oakland, CA, where he lives with his family. You can find out more about his work at his website.

Dr. Larry Ward (1948—2025) was a senior teacher in Buddhist Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village tradition. He brought 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 had a PhD in Religious Studies with an emphasis on Buddhism and the neuroscience of meditation. Larry was a knowledgeable, charismatic and inspirational teacher, offering insights with personal stories and resounding clarity that expressed his dharma name, “True Great Sound.” He was a co-founder, with Dr. Peggy Rowe Ward, of The Lotus Institute.  Larry was the author of  America’s Racial Karma and co-author with Dr. Peggy Rowe Ward of Love’s Garden: A Guide to Mindful Relationships.

Kritee(dharma name Kanko) is a Climate Scientist, Zen Buddhist priest, Educator & Founding Spiritual Director ofBoundless in Motion, a 501(c) nonprofit based in Boulder (Colorado). She served as a leading 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 ofRocky 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, and Al Gore’s Climate Reality. Her experience is that identifying and releasing our personal and ecological grief in presence of a loving community is necessary toreindigenizeour ecosystems in this era of globalpolycrisis. 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 fewhere). For more information, visit herwebsite.

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.

Lama Willa Miller is the Founder and Spiritual Director of Natural Dharma Fellowship in Boston, MA and its retreat center Wonderwell Mountain Refuge in Springfield, NH. She is Visiting Lecturer in Buddhist Ministry at Harvard Divinity School. As a writer and editor, her work has been published in Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, Buddhadharma, and the Tibet Journal. Willa’s teaching interests include compassion, non-dual embodiment and contemplative care.

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 .

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.

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.