Spiritual Activation. Julia is a prominent environmental activist best known for living in the redwood tree Luna for 738 days (1997-1999) to prevent loggers from cutting it down. She is author of the book The Legacy of Luna and co-author of One Makes the Difference.
Kate Munding is co-guiding teacher of IMCB. She has been practicing since 2002 and has done numerous 1-2 month intensive practice periods. Kate is currently in Spirit Rock's Teacher Training program. Kate has also trained approximately 2,000 educators, therapists, and parents in mindful awareness techniques and philosophy in the U.S. and abroad.
She is founder of The Heart-Mind Education Project, a consulting business focused on mindfulness in education.
Kevin Griffin is the author of the seminal 2004 book "One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps" and the recent "A Burning Desire: Dharma God and the Path of Recovery". He has been practicing Buddhist meditation for three decades and been in recovery since 1985. He’s been a meditation teacher for almost fifteen years. His teacher training was at Spirit Rock Meditation Center where he currently leads Dharma and Recovery classes.
Konda was introduced to Tibetan Buddhism in 1982. Her love for Vipassana began in 1996, working with Jack Kornfield at the Vallecitos Retreat Center. She has been a regular yoga teacher at Spirit Rock since 1997, teaching many retreats including the annual Metta Retreat and many of the POC retreats. Konda’s dharma training includes the East Bay Meditation Center Commit to Dharma program, Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader and she is currently in the 2020 Spirit Rock Teacher Training program. Konda has taught daylongs, retreats and workshops. She sits on the Board of Directors of Spirit Rock Meditation Center and is on the Advisory Board of the Namchak Foundation Learning Circles. In addition to her spiritual pursuits, Konda is a social entrepreneur, earth and social justice activist. She is the Co-Founder and former CEO of Impact Hub Oakland, a beautiful co-working space that supports socially engaged entrepreneurs and changemakers.
Kristin is Associate Professor of Human Development and Culture at the University of Texas. She began practicing Insight Meditation in 1997. While doing her post-doctoral work she conducted research on self-compassion. She has developed an 8-week program to teach self-compassion skills. Her book titled Self-Compassion was published in April, 2011. Kristin was recently featured in the best-selling book and award-winning documentary called The Horse Boy that chronicles her family’s adventure with autism.
Linda Graham, M.F.T., has a full-time private psychotherapy practice in the San Francisco Bay Area and leads trainings nationwide on the emerging integration of relational psychology, mindfulness and neuroscience. She is the author of Bouncing Back: Rewiring Your Brain for Maximum Resilience (New World Library, 2013) and publishes a monthly e-newsletter Healing and Awakening into Aliveness and Wholeness, archived on her website.
Mark Coleman has been engaged in meditation practice since 1981, primarily within the Insight meditation tradition. He has been teaching meditation retreats since 1997. His teaching is also influenced by his studies with Advaita Vedanta and Tibetan teachers in Asia and the West, and through his teacher training with Jack Kornfield. Mark primarily teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California, though he also teaches nationally, in Europe and India.
He leads backpacking retreats, nature-based retreats, and teaches retreats for environmental activists in the wilderness at Vallecitos Mountain Refuge in New Mexico, and at Knoll Farm in Vermont. In the Bay Area, Mark has a counseling practice, where he integrates his studies of psychotherapy and meditative work. He is the author of “Awake in the Wild - Mindfulness in Nature as a path of Self-Discovery." Mark has been an avid hiker, and backpacker for most of his life and spends much of his time in the outdoors. He lives in the woods in Marin County, Northern California.
Mei Elliott is a Dharma teacher in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, who practices at the intersection between Zen and Vipassana. Mei began training as a Zen monk at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in 2014, and has spent eight years living at Zen temples and monasteries. During this time she served as the director of San Francisco Zen Center and the guiding instructor for Young Urban Zen. Mei was authorized to teach by James Baraz and is currently a participant in Insight Meditation Center’s Dharma Teacher Training. She now resides at Insight Retreat Center where she serves as Managing Director.
Mila Khyentse Rinpoche, is a French tulku (reincarnation of a realized Tibetan master) who grew up in a French family acquiring a traditional European education with degrees in tibetology, archeology and history. However, being a tulku, he very early decided to dedicate his life to the practice of Buddhism and has received numerous teachings and transmissions from all schools of Tibetan Buddhism.
One of the greatest contemporary Dzogchen masters, Tertön Pema Tötrengsel Rinpoche, recognized him as a great bodhisattva and enthroned him as his lineage holder (Gyaltsab). This master also prophesied that Mila Khyentse Rinpoche would develop many activities for the benefit of the world.
In fulfillment of this vision, he has been involved in intercultural and interdisciplinary programs in Europe and Asia. He is developing a center in the French Pyrenees, that will welcome practitioners from all authentic spiritual paths. In Asia, in Tibet, Rinpoche is renovating the stupa-temple that was built by his master. In Bhutan, where he is currently living with his wife, he is developing a new generation retreat center that will be open to everyone (not only Buddhists).
