Guest Teachers

John Travis, guiding and founding teacher of Mountain Stream Meditation Center, leads an annual daylong retreat in Davis with the Davis Insight Group and teaches our annual weekend retreat at Bodega Bay.

Some of John's key Dharma teachings are collected in his 2019 book Taking the One Seat, also available in audio format on the Mountain Stream website.

For more information on John Travis, you can visit his website.

Doug Kraft is the guiding and founding teacher of Easing Awake Sangha in Sacramento. His podcasts, videos, books and retreats are dedicated to "deepening kindness and wisdom through cultivating and practicing the Buddha’s teachings on meditation, compassionate service, and increasing well-being.” His booklet Beginning the Journey, an introduction to 6R meditation & the jhanas, is available as a free pdf download.

Kevin Griffin is the author of One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the 12 Steps (Rodale Press 2004) and A Burning Desire: Dharma God and the Path of Recovery (Hay House 2009). He is a leader in the mindful recovery movement and one of the founders of the Buddhist Recovery Network. A local 12-step group focused on Kevin's One Breath at a Time meets Wednesday nights at the Shambhala Center in Davis.

For more information about Kevin Griffin, please visit his website.

Bhante Vimalaramsi is the abbot of Dhamma Sukha Meditation Center in Annapolis, Missouri. He teaches Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation (T.W.I.M.) which uses the "Mindfulness of Lovingkindness" practice (also known as the 6R practice) for the journey to Nibbāna. He offers retreats around the world, on-line, and in northern California.

Ayya Sudhamma visits us from Carolina Buddhist Vihara, a Theravada Buddhist center in a small house in the suburbs of Greenville, SC. Bhikkhuni Sudhamma was briefly an attorney in San Francisco. In 1993, she first encountered the Dhamma through Thai monks visiting San Francisco. By mid-1994 she wished to ordain and in 1999 she gratefully received from Sri Lankan elder Ven. Gunaratana, of the Bhavana Society, the opportunity to enter the holy life. She obtained higher ordination as a bhikkhuni (female monk) in Sri Lanka in 2003.

Noah visited our group shortly after the 2003 publication of his memoir, Dharma Punx. Noah founded the Against the Stream Meditation Society (ATS) and the nonprofit Refuge Recovery, a Buddhist-based addiction treatment program.

In 2019, Noah was removed from teaching at ATS following an internal investigation of accusations that he had violated a teaching rule requiring teachers “to avoid creating harm through sexuality” (third precept). The Ethics and Reconciliation (EAR) Council of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, in Woodacre, California, withdrew Noah's Spirit Rock teaching authorization. Noah's website states that he was "falsely accused of sexual misconduct."

You can visit Noah's website here.