Natural Dharma Fellowship

NDF Teachers

Lama Willa Miller Founding Teacher: Lama Willa has studied and practiced in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition for the last twenty years in the non-sectarian Kagyu, Nyingma and Shangpa lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. She completed two traditional Three Year Retreats in the nineties, was ordained a lama [Buddhist minister] in 1999, and teaches Tibetan Buddhist practice, meditation and yoga in the Northeast. Her teaching specialties include natural meditation (mahamudra), deity practice, body-based Buddhist yoga, and practices for deep retreat. In addition to her dharma teaching, she is working towards a PhD in Religion at Harvard University. She is author of the book Everyday Dharma: Seven Weeks to Finding the Buddha in You, a practical guide for getting started on the spiritual path.

Lama John Makransky Contributing Teacher: Lama John has practiced meditations of compassion and wisdom from Tibetan Buddhism for 30 years and has pioneered new ways of taking them into the worlds of social service and social justice by making them accessible to people of all backgrounds and faiths. A professor of Buddhism and Comparative Theology at Boston College, John is also a senior advisor to Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche’s Centre for Buddhist Studies in Nepal, affiliated with Kathmandu University and Rangjung Yeshe Institute. In 2000, John was ordained a Tibetan Buddhist lama in the lineage of Nyoshul Khenpo and Lama Surya Das. As a meditation teacher at retreats across the U.S., John became known for guiding participants in their discovery of innate wisdom and love. He is the guiding meditation teacher of the Foundation for Active Compassion, and the author of Awakening through Love: Unveiling Your Deepest Goodness.

Charles Genoud Contributing Teacher: Charles has been a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism since 1970. He began his studies in Dharamsala, in the School of Dialectics, and was student and translator for the Venerable Geshe Rabten for over ten years. While Charles studied and worked with him in Switzerland, Geshe Rabten taught all four schools of Buddhist philosophy, and he taught Madhyamika philosophy, the Six Perfections, and the Lamrim Chenmo of Tsongkhapa. Later, Charles went on to study closely with Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and other teachers in the Dzogchen tradition. He has also practiced Vipassana meditation in Burma and India. Charles is co-founder of the Vimalakirti Center for Meditation in Geneva, Switzerland. He is author of Gesture of Awareness: A Radical Approach to Time, Space and Movement. He lives in Geneva and conducts meditation retreats in the United States, Europe, Brazil, and the Middle East.

Brendan Kennedy Contributing Teacher: Brendan Kennedy has been practicing Tibetan Buddhism for the past 27 years. His main teachers are: H.H. Dalai Lama, Khyentse Rimpoche, Chatral Rimpoche, Sokste Rimpoche and Lama Surya Das. He has helped Lama Surya Das for the past 12 years in teachings and in intensive retreats. He also has a close connection with Ramana Maharishi and Nisagardatta Maharaji. Brendan has tried to show the complementry similarities between Dzogchen and Avaita Vedanta experientially. He gives a few intensive retreats a year, but mostly likes to practice at his desert hermitage.

Jane Burdick Meditation Teacher: Jane lives in Portland, Maine. She has been a Feldenkrais Movement Teacher for twenty years, is a Proprioceptive Writing teacher, and leads a weekly meditation group in the practices of Natural Love and Awareness and Natural Compassion and Awareness. She has been a student of Lama Tsultrim Allione, and for the last eleven years has been a student of Lama Surya Das, Lama John Makransky and Lama Willa Miller.

Leah Weiss Ekstrom Meditation Teacher: Leah received Masters degrees in Social Work and Pastoral Ministry from Boston College where she is currently a doctoral student in Theology and Education. For 12 years, she has been studying and practicing in meditations of Love and Wisdom from the Tibetan Dzogchen tradition. She has completed many retreats among them four of the One Hundred Day Retreats at Dzogchen Osel Ling in Texas and a six-month retreat in Virginia. Leah is a cofounder of the Foundation for Active Compassion and is an associate teacher with both the Foundation for Active Compassion and Natural Dharma. She offers trainings for caregivers and activists in a variety of settings.

Jess Fallon Meditation Teacher: Jess started meditating in high school with her English teacher Dean Sluyter and his wife Maggy. She practiced Transcendental Meditation for several years before meeting Lama Surya Das at Esalen in 1999. From then she was showered with encouragement. She exerted herself in Tibetan Buddhist practices, chiefly vadjrayana ngondro and Tibetan yoga. After years of listening to Lama John teach, she finally realized that the best way for her to help others was to work with her own suffering. Brendan Kennedy kept her on the straight and narrow when she veered from practice. Charles Genoud repeatedly annihilated her assumptions. Lama Willa enlivened her yiddam practice. She is exceedingly grateful to all of her teachers. A soccer player, Jess enjoys group practice, especially when it is intense and silent. She teaches high school by day.

Julie Forsythe Meditation Teacher: Julie is a founding member and associate teacher of the Foundation for Active Compassion with her teaching mentor, Lama John Makransky and Leah Weiss. She has been an active student/practioner of Tibetan Buddhism (Dzogchen) for the last 13 years. She stems from a rich background in activism based in deep contemplation, coming from the western mystical tradition of Quakerism. Currently she is an Assistant Professor and Department Chair of First Year Studies at Landmark College in Putney Vermont.

Laura Howell Meditation Teacher: Laura has been practicing meditation since 1988 when she began attending retreats led by Baba Ram Dass. In the early 1990's she became a Dzogchen practitioner and a student of Lama Surya Das. Laura was a practice leader for Cambridge Dzogchen Sangha for many years. She has been a student of Lama Willa Miller since 2008. Laura resides in North Andover, MA where she is director and meditation teacher for Great Pond Sangha, which she and her husband Brad co-founded in 2004. She is a poet, psychotherapist, homeschooling mother of two sons, active in North Parish Unitarian Universalist Congregation, and especially interested in sharing the Dharma with children and families.

Camille Hykes Meditation Teacher: Camille has trained in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition for over 15 years. Under the heart-full guidance of her teachers, she has practiced in intensive solitary retreats as well as two 100-day Dzogchen Foundation retreats, and has become part of Charles Genoud’s teacher training non-program, Gesture of Awareness. Editor of National Book Award, PEN/Faulkner Award, and many other award-winning writers for over 25 years, she has also taught of naturalness, freshness, and creative unfoldment at leading writers’ conferences in the United States. She has attended to Dharma books as well, including Gesture of Awareness: A Radical Approach to Time, Space, and Movement by Charles Genoud. Raised in a deaf household, she has engaged in service in deaf and disabled communities her entire life.

Deborah Jai Levy Meditation Teacher: Jai is a body-oriented psychotherapist (LICSW) and certified hatha yoga teacher. She has been traveling along the spiritual and psychological paths of self-discovery for nearly 30 years, integrating her intensive practice and study of Buddhism, Yoga and Psychology into her life and work. She has completed numerous solitary and teacher-led meditation retreats since 1986, in both the Theravadan and Tibetan Buddhist traditions, including two 100-day cloistered retreats at Dzogchen Osel Ling near Austin, Texas under the guidance of Lama Surya Das. Jai is a student of Lama Willa Miller, Charles Genoud and Lama John Makransky. She is a teacher with the Natural Dharma Fellowship, is in Gesture of Awareness teacher-training with Charles Genoud and also maintains a private psychotherapy practice in Amherst, MA.

Kathe McKenna Meditation Teacher: Kathe was one of the founders of Haley House in 1966 when she and her husband welcomed men who were homeless into their apartment. For the next 42 years she merged her background in Christian contemplation with service. In the 80s she walked for peace and chanted with the Nipponzan Myohoji monks and nuns. She was introduced to Dzogchen by Sogyal Rinpoche and became a student of Lama Surya Das under whose guidance she went on a 100 day Wisdom retreat. It is Tibetan Buddhism with its practices that turn poison into medicine - in oneself and in the world - that is her path.

Mike Miller Meditation Teacher: Mike has been studying and practicing Tibetan Buddhism for 12 years, including completion of retreats on Vajrayogini and the Six Yogas of Naropa. He is interested in adapting the Tibetan retreat tradition to busy Western lives. He works as a Registered Nurse in Boston. He and Lama Willa have been married since 2005.

Robert Morrison Meditation Teacher: Bob is a writer living in the Boston area. Since meeting the late Nyoshul Khenpo Rinpoche in 1994, he has studied and practiced the Dzogchen teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, primarily with his main teachers: Lama Surya Das, Lama John Makransky, Lama Willa Miller, Charles Genoud and Brendan Kennedy. For many years he has been a practice leader with the Cambridge Dzogchen Sangha, a practice leader of the Natural Love & Awareness practices developed by Lama John Makransky, and host of the sangha's Green Tara sadhana practice group. As an avid hiker, his special interests include the awakening power of nature and "the magical display of appearances," and, as a cancer survivor, the challenges of cancer as spiritual opportunities.

Jane Moss Meditation Teacher: Jane has been exploring Tibetan Buddhism since meeting Chagdud Tulku in 1995. She is a meditation teacher with the Foundation for Active Compassion and is currently engaged in a three-year training with Charles Genoud in Gesture of Awareness. Jane has been a student of Lama Surya Das, Lama John Makransky, Brendan Kennedy and Lama Willa Miller. She is a certified instructor of the Tree of Life Tai Chi System and teaches at the Council on Aging in Lincoln and at the Harvard Medical School-Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston. An educator and curriculum developer for her whole life, she draws on her experience of playing and coaching chamber music and of teaching literature and writing to people of all ages.

Rebecca Spainhower Meditation Teacher: Rebecca has been practicing Tibetan Buddhism since being introduced to it in 2002 by Jane Moss and Julie Forsythe; she has been under Lama Willa Miller's guidance since 2006. She has completed numerous meditation retreats including four cloistered 100-Day retreats at Dzogchen Osel Ling in Austin, Texas, under the guidance of Lama Surya Das, Lama John Makransky, Lama Willa Miller, Charles Genoud, and Brendan Kennedy. Her eclectic background includes the study and practice of tai chi, hatha yoga, Tibetan yoga, and (for fun!) knitting, quilting, and sewing. She is preparing to attend graduate school for acupuncture and oriental medicine. She currently lives in Tallahassee, Florida, with two parents and one small dog.