Guiding Teachers
Gil Fronsdal
Gil is the founding teacher, and a co-guiding teacher at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California and the Insight Retreat Center in Santa Cruz, California. He has been teaching since 1990. Gil has practiced Zen and Vipassana since 1975 and has a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from Stanford. He is a husband and father of two boys.
You can read Articles by Gil and see information on Gil’s Books on this site.
You may listen to Gil’s talks on Audio Dharma.
Andrea Fella
Andrea is a co-guiding teacher at the Insight Meditation Center and the Insight Retreat Center. She has been practicing Insight Meditation since 1996, and teaching Insight Meditation since 2003. She is particularly drawn to intensive retreat practice, and has done a number of long retreats, both in the United States and in Burma. During one long practice period in Burma, she ordained as a nun with Sayadaw U Janaka. Andrea is especially drawn to the wisdom teachings of the Buddha. Her teachings emphasize clarity and practicality. Andrea is also on the Governing Teachers Council at Spirit Rock, and she teaches residential retreats for IMC and other retreat centers around the country. More information about Andrea on her website.
Dharma Teachers
Andrea Castillo
Andrea Castillo, born in Mexico City, has practiced Insight Meditation since 1998 under the guidance of Gil Fronsdal. Andrea has taught Dharma in Spanish at IMC since 2011 and more recently at Against the Stream in SF, and at Insight Santa Cruz. She completed a Ph.D. in the Humanities at Stanford University in 2009; she is also a graduate of the Sati Center Chaplaincy Training Program, and of the Dharma Mentoring Training Program taught by Gil Fronsdal and Andrea Fella. Andrea has served the Insight community by being on the board of the Buddhist Insight Network, and presently at the IMC board. She also teaches mindfulness in English and Spanish to various populations in the Bay Area.
bruni dávila
bruni dávila was born in Puerto Rico and came to the mainland in 1991. She has practiced Vipassana/Zen meditation since 1995 and at IMC since 2006. A student of both Gil Fronsdal and Andrea Fella, bruni teaches at IMC and in the wider Bay Area in Spanish and English. She graduated from the Sati Center Introduction to Buddhist Chaplaincy Training, the Dharma Mentoring Training and the Entering the Stream Program at IMC. Currently, bruni is in the IMC Local Dharma Leaders and the 2017-2021 Insight Meditation Society (IMS) Teacher Training Programs.
Diana Clark
Diana Clark, PhD offers dharma talks, sutta study and lovingkindness practices at IMC. She was trained to be a residential retreat teacher by Gil Fronsdal and Andrea Fella. She has cumulatively spent more than two years in silent meditation retreats, has a Master’s degree in Buddhist Studies and is a graduate of the Sati Center Buddhist Chaplaincy program. She also has a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and serves the dharma community by being the former treasurer of IMC and the current treasurer of IRC.
Ines Freedman
Ines first became interested in meditation through her yoga practice in 1970. She has been practicing Buddhist meditation since 1985, with Gil Fronsdal being her primary teacher. She is a graduate of the Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader Program. She is a member of the IMC Karuna Council and is past Managing Director of both the Insight Meditation Center and the Insight Retreat Center. She developed IMC’s Online Meditation Courses. She has experience with long meditation retreats including extended self-retreats, and has a special interest in working with meditation practices for those with chronic pain. She currently teaches retreats at Insight Retreat Center. She is a retired chiropractor.
Matthew Brensilver
Matthew Brensilver, PhD, is a member of the Guiding Teachers Executive Committee and the Teachers Council at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. He previously served as Program Director for Mindful Schools and for more than a decade, was a core teacher at Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society. He lectures at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center about the intersections between mindfulness and mental health. Before committing to teach meditation full-time, he spent years doing research on addiction pharmacotherapy at the UCLA Center for Behavioral and Addiction Medicine and is interested in the unfolding dialogue between dharma and science. Matthew is the co-author of two forthcoming books on meditation during adolescence.
Max Erdstein
Max started practicing with IMC in 1999 just after graduating from Stanford. He has practiced Vipassana and Zen in America, Japan, Thailand, and Burma. He studied Buddhist chaplaincy with the Sati Center. He was trained as a Dharma teacher by Gil Fronsdal and is a graduate of the Spirit Rock teacher training program. With Gil he taught the first weeklong retreat at IRC in November 2012. He is a husband and father of two girls.
Nikki Mirghafori
Nikki Mirghafori, PhD, teaches and serves on the Board of Directors of the Insight Meditation Center (IMC) and Spirit Rock. She is a Stanford-trained compassion cultivation instructor, a UCLA trained mindfulness facilitator, a Spirit Rock/IMS/IMC trained residential retreat teacher, and authorized by the renown Burmese meditation master, Ven. Pa Auk Sayadaw, to teach jhanas and analytical vipassana. Nikki has straddled the worlds of Dharma & technology as an Artificial Intelligence scientist for decades.
Recently Graduated Dharma Teachers from 2021-24 IMC Teacher Training
Ari Crellin-Quick has been a student of the Dharma since 2004. Having profoundly benefited from this practice, he is grateful to be able to support others through teaching and mentoring.
David Lorey began meditating as a teenager in the 1970s and then came to practice in the field of early Buddhadharma in the early 2000s. In sharing the Dharma, David is committed to helping others discover their own unique ways of using meditation and study to find relief from stress and release from suffering. Gil Fronsdal is David’s guiding teacher; Insight Meditation Center is his home sangha.
Dawn Neal is the Guiding Teacher for Insight Santa Cruz, teaches a regular group for IMC, and serves as core faculty for the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies Online Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program. Dawn holds an MA from the Institute of Buddhist Studies and Graduate Theological Union. Prior to teaching Dharma full time, she was an Interfaith Spiritual Care professional (Chaplain) at Stanford Medicine.
Francisco Morillo Gable is a classically trained Dharma Teacher. He was born and raised in the Dominican Republic until the age of 10. He studied Comparative Literature and minored in West African Dance at UCLA.
Johnathan Woodside is an Insight Meditation teacher offering Dharma instruction rooted in the Theravada tradition of ethics, concentration, and wisdom. Johnathan has been teaching since 2011 and is the guiding teacher of Mindfulness Outreach Initiative in Omaha, Nebraska, and Dallas Insight Sangha in Dallas, Texas.
Kirsten Rudestam has been practicing meditation in the Theravadan tradition since 2001 and serves as core faculty for the Sati Center’s Buddhist Eco-Chaplaincy training program. She holds a PhD in Environmental Sociology and is a long-time student and teacher of environmental justice and earth-based practices. When not exploring water-bodies or on retreat, she lives in a yurt in White Salmon, Washington.
Kim Allen has practiced in the Insight Meditation Center community for over 20 years, as well as in Asia and on long retreats. She helped create the Lay Contemplative form of practice that supports people living full lives of Dharma. Her teachings, collected at www.uncontrived.org, draw on her background in sutta study, inquiry, and the wish to foster the Dharma’s unfolding in the West.
Born into a Mahayana Buddhist family in Vietnam, Lienchi Tran began meditating in Thay Thich Nhat Hanh’s tradition before exploring Theravada Buddhism under Bhante Khippapanno. In 2003, Lienchi met Sayadaw U Tejaniya, whose teachings deeply shaped her practice during many years of retreat at his monastery in Burma. Currently, Tran is undergoing teacher training with Gil Fronsdal and Andrea Fella at IMC/IRC and is dedicated to sharing the Dharma to ease suffering and inspire liberation.
Kodo Conlin is a Dharma teacher grounded in both the Insight and Zen traditions. Ordained as a Soto Zen priest in 2015, he is also authorized to teach through Insight Meditation Center. Kodo has spent much of his adult life living and practicing in temples, monasteries, and Dharma centers. He currently serves as co-Managing Director at Insight Retreat Center in Scotts Valley, CA, where he finds inspiration in retreat practice and the dedication of fellow practitioners.
Liz Powell has been practicing Vipassana meditation since 2004. She is a grateful graduate of three dharma teacher-, leader-, and mentor-training programs offered between 2014 and 2025 by Gil Fronsdal and Andrea Fella, as well as the Dedicated Practitioners and Advanced Practitioners programs at Spirit Rock. She has offered programs at IMC for many years, including The Eightfold Path, Happy Hour brahmavihara practice, Intro courses, and half-day and daylong retreats (including many for children, families and parents). She has also served as IMC Board President and the Managing Director of the Insight Retreat Center.
Mei Elliott practices in both the Theravada and Zen traditions. She trained as a Zen monk at Tassajara Zen Center and spent eight years living at Zen temples and monasteries. Mei was authorized to teach through Insight Meditation Center and currently resides at Insight Retreat Center in Scotts Valley, CA, where she serves as the Co-Managing Director.
Marjolein Janssen (pronunciation “Mar-yo-line”) has been practicing insight meditation intensively across Europe, the US, and Myanmar, where she was ordained as a Buddhist nun. In her teachings, she aims to present a practical approach to Buddhist concepts and ideas. Marjolein teaches retreats in the US and Europe and serves as the Guiding Teacher at the Insight Meditation Community of Richmond, Virginia. She also teaches online events at the Insight Meditation Center. For more information, visit her website at www.brightdharma.org.
Shelley Gault has been meditating since her college days in the 1960s, practicing and studying in the Buddhist Insight tradition since 2003, and has spent over three years cumulatively in silent retreat since then. She is grateful to have been a student of Gil Fronsdal since 2010. A spouse, mother, and grandmother, Shelley teaches in the Open Door Sangha in Santa Barbara, where she lives, and offers her service teaching and in other roles for IMC and IRC. Literature, the arts, and connection to the natural world are rich sources of dharma teaching and understanding for her.
Tanya Wiser, LCSW SEP, teaches at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA. She works full-time as a mindfulness-based therapist, integrating her mindfulness, compassion, and somatic therapy training with insights from direct engagement with Buddhist teachings. Tanya draws from the teachings of her Western Theravada teachers, Gil Fronsdal and Andrea Fella, as well as Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach, and the Burmese Monk Sayadaw U Tejaniya. As a white, queer mother and lay practitioner, she enjoys fostering a sense of sangha (spiritual community) within a relational framework of spiritual friendship, all while living a householder’s life guided by a commitment to liberation.
Ying Chen has been practicing at the Insight Meditation Center since 2005 and is part of the Insight Retreat Center Teacher Training program (2021–25). As a wife, mother, and lay practitioner, she finds delight and inspiration in the potential for freedom and well-being in everyday life. Ying primarily teaches at IMC, Insight Retreat Center, and Dharma Ground.
Dharma Leaders
Berget Jelane
Berget has been a student of the Dharma since 1986. She is a graduate of the SRMC Community Dharma Leaders Program and the Sati Center Chaplaincy Training. Recently, she was ordained by Gil as a lay Buddhist minister. As a psychotherapist, she uses mindfulness and other Buddhist principles in her work with people.
Chris Clifford
Chris Clifford has practiced meditation at IMC and other Insight centers since 1995. She appreciates the integration of intensive meditation retreats with daily life Dharma practice and service. She is a graduate of IMC’s Dharma Mentoring and Local Dharma Leaders programs. She is an instructor for IMC’s various introductory classes and co-leads the Eightfold Path Program. She also manages retreats for The Mountain Hermitage in New Mexico and serves as the kitchen coordinator for Insight Retreat Center. She is a retired software engineer.
David Cohn
David Cohn was a resident practitioner at the Zen Center of San Francisco’s three practice places, Tassajara Monastery, Green Gulch Farm, and the City Center, from 1970 to 1984, and was ordained as a priest in 1974. Since then he has carried on lay practice, became married and has a daughter and a grandson. He owned and operated two San Francisco restaurants from 1985 until retirement in 2009. He was a Zen Hospice Project volunteer for 20 years, and has been a Peninsula Hospital volunteer chaplain from 2002 to the present. He serves as board chairman and consultant for the Zen Center Everyday board, overseeing Greens. He practices now with Gil Fronsdal and the IMC and IRC communities, is an IMC board member, is on the IMC Karuna council, and is an IMC mentor.
Jennifer Lemas
Jennifer is an ordained Theravada, Buddhist Lay Minister. She has been practicing Vipassana meditation since 1997, with Gil Fronsdal as her guiding teacher. She is a graduate of the Sati Center Buddhist Chaplaincy Program and Upaya’s Buddhist Chaplaincy Program and is currently in Spirit Rock’s Dedicated Practitioners Program. Jennifer has served as a chaplain/volunteer chaplain since 2010 at Bay Area Hospitals including Sequoia Hospital, San Francisco General and Mills Peninsula Hospital. She also leads the Buddhism and Recovery group at IMC.
Maria Straatmann
A retired scientist and businesswoman, has studied in the Vipassana tradition with Gil Fronsdal since 1996. Maria serves as IMC Audiodharma Online Courses Coordinator/Teacher, and on its Karuna Council; she is a Spirit Rock Buddhist Ritual Minister. She emphasizes freedom through seeing things as they are and letting go of unskillful mind habits, on the cushion and especially in daily life.
Robert Cusick
Robert Cusick is a long time student of Gil Fronsdal. He was a Buddhist monk in Burma, trained by the Venerable Pa Auk Sayadaw. He also trained in the Soto Zen tradition at Tassajara Zen Center in 2001. He participated in the Diamond Heart program with Hameed Ali (A.H. Almaas), in the Sati Center’s Buddhist Chaplaincy training and completed the Dedicated Practitioners Program (DPP) at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in 2003, where he served as Retreats Program Manager. Robert is a certified Kripalu Yoga instructor, and sits on the board of directors at the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies.
Terry Lesser
Terry has been teaching yoga and meditation at the Insight Meditation Center since 1995. Beginning in 1984 she trained primarily in the Iyengar style and is also certified in restorative yoga. A student of Vipassana meditation since 1992, she is a graduate of the Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader Program. She currently also teaches at the Avenidas Senior Center in Palo Alto. Terry sees hatha yoga as a moving meditation as well as a preparation for formal sitting — a path to awaken the body, calm the mind, and open the heart. Buddhist concepts blend with yoga philosophy to infuse the practice, as movement and breath are explored with attentiveness, curiosity, patience, and a compassionate, non-judgmental, playful attitude. Terry feels an especially treasured part of yoga at IMC is the welcoming atmosphere and support and companionship of sangha (community of practitioners).
Family and Youth Programs
Hilary Borison
Hilary is a recent graduate of the Mindful Self-Compassion Teacher Training through the UCSD Center for Mindfulness, and a graduate of the Chaplaincy Program through the Sati Center, applying both in her work as a grief counselor with Kara in Palo Alto. In addition she serves as a mentor in the Eightfold Path Program. Hilary teaches the Dharma Bodhis middle school program and co-facilitates the Women’s Circle of Mindfulness. She has been a student of Gil Fronsdal’s since 2004.