Syra Smith is a Community Teacher with the East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland California, where she is co-creating space with one of the most diverse communities of dharma practitioners in the US.
Syra has been educating and working with young people for more than 20 years. She coordinated and co-facilitated EBMC’s weekly Teen Sangha and eventually established and served as Co-Guiding Teacher for the Center’s first peer-led Young Adult Deep Refuge Group. She worked with Resolve to Stop the Violence, an award winning program in the San Francisco County Jail System utilizing contemplative and restorative practices to impact violence and recidivism in our prison communities.
A lifelong meditator and SF Bay Area native, Syra began her personal meditation practice as a teen in 1988 and has been practicing in the Theravada Buddhist tradition since 2009. She graduated EBMC’s Commit to Dharma study program in 2011 and became a Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader in 2017. Syra is currently participating in the multi-year Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program through the Awareness Training Institute and UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center under the guidance of Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach.
Presently, Syra co-leads the Mid-Day Dharma Collective at SF Insight. She teaches Insight Meditation and mindfulness throughout the SF Bay Area and proudly serves as Core Teacher with the San Francisco LGBT Sangha.
Thanissara, from London, was a nun for 12 years in the tradition of Ajahn Chah and has taught internationally for over 30 years. She is co-founder of Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat, South Africa, Sacred Mountain Sangha, California, and Chattanooga Insight, Tennessee. She has an MA in Mindfulness Psychotherapy Practice from the Karuna Institute UK and is co-author of Listening to the Heart, A Contemplative Guide to Engaged Buddhism, author of Time To Stand Up, An Engaged Buddhist Manifesto for Our Earth, and several books of poetry. She is a member of the Teacher Council at Spirit Rock and co-guiding teacher of Sacred Mountain Sangha.
Wes Nisker is a dharma teacher, author, radio commentator and performer. He is the founder and co-editor of Inquiring Mind and a member of the Spirit Rock Teachers Council. His latest book is Crazy Wisdom Saves the World Again!
Will Kabat-Zinn spent his early practice years at the Insight Meditation Society with Larry Rosenberg, Sharon Salzberg, and Joseph Goldstein and at Panditarama Forest Meditation Center in Burma under the guidance of Sayadaw U Pandita. Will was deeply influenced by his friendship with Dr. Rina Sircar who carried the lineage of Mingon Sayadaw through her teacher Taungpulu Sayadaw, and by the fierce compassion of Chan Master Sheng Yen who he met and practiced with in New York. He lives in the East Bay with his wife and two sons.
