Mark Nunberg began his practice in 1982 and has been teaching meditation since 1990. He co-founded Common Ground Meditation Center in Minneapolis in 1993 with Wynn Fricke and continues to serve as the center’s Guiding Teacher. Mark has studied with both Asian and Western teachers and finds deep inspiration in the teachings of the Buddha. Mark practiced as a monk for five months in Burma and completed four three-month retreats at Insight Meditation Society Retreat Center, as well as many months of intensive retreat practice at The Forest Refuge. Mark continues to be a grateful student of Buddhist practice.

Carol Wilson first began practicing Vipassana or Insight meditation in 1971, with S.N. Goenka, in Bodh Gaya, India. Since then she has studied and practiced with a number of Theravada teachers, both Asian and Western. She has been particularly influenced by the teachings and practice styles of Sayadaw U Pandita, and in the past ten years, of Ashin U Tejaniya. In the 1980s she spent a year in Thailand as a Buddhist nun, which she continues to appreciate as an immensely valuable and inspiring experience.
Carol has been sharing vipassana and metta retreat teachings since 1986, both in the United States and abroad. She feels a strong commitment to supporting the conditions for long intensive retreats to take place, and for many years she has been teaching the three-month retreat at Insight Meditation Society as well as a month long retreat at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. She is currently a guiding teacher at IMS.

Greg Scharf began meditating in 1992 & has been teaching residential meditation retreats since 2007, including the annual 3 month retreat at the Insight Meditation Society where he serves as a guiding teacher. In his teaching Greg emphasizes the understanding that meditation is fundamentally an exploration of nature and natural processes. He also stresses the critical importance of bringing the qualities of kindness, compassion, and a sense of humor to practice. Greg has a long-standing relationship with the country & people of Burma (Myanmar) where he trained as a Buddhist monk and where he works with a small humanitarian aid project - particularly targeting education, health-care, and support of Buddhist Nuns. Currently living in the high country of northern Arizona, Greg's love of nature and the outdoors deeply informs both his practice and teaching.

Ayyā Medhānandī Bhikkhunī is the founder and guiding teacher of Sati Sārāņīya Hermitage. The daughter of Eastern European refugees who emigrated to Montreal after World War II, she began a spiritual quest in childhood that led her to India, Burma, England, New Zealand, Malaysia, Taiwan, and finally, back to Canada.
In 1988, at the Yangon Mahasi retreat centre in Burma, Ayyā requested full ordination as a bhikkhunī from her teacher, the Venerable Sayādaw U Pandita. This was not yet possible for Theravāda Buddhist women. Instead, Sayādaw granted her ordination as a ten precept nun on condition that she keep her vows for life. When a military coup closed Myanmar’s border, Sayādaw blessed her to join the Ajahn Chah Thai Forest Saņgha at Amaravati, UK. Ten years later. Ayyā felt called to practice as a hermit nun in New Zealand for 6 years and later in SE Asia.
In 2007, after nearly 20 years as a novice alms-mendicant nun, Ayyā fulfilled her long-held wish for full bhikkhunī ordination at Ling Quan Chan Monastery in Keelung, Taiwan. In 2008, on invitation from the Ottawa Buddhist Society and Toronto Theravāda Buddhist Community, Ayyā returned to her native Canada to establish Sati Sārāņīya Hermitage.

Andrea Fella has been practicing insight meditation since 1996 and was quickly drawn to intensive retreat practice. She 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 the co-teacher with Gil Fronsdal at the Insight Meditation Center and Insight Retreat Center in Redwood City, CA. She is also a member of the Spirit Rock Teachers Council, a core faculty member for the Dedicated Dharma Practitioners Program at Spirit Rock, and teaches residential retreats at Spirit Rock, IMS, and other retreat centers around the country. Andrea is especially drawn to the wisdom teachings of the Buddha. Her teachings emphasize clarity and practicality.

Lienchi was born into a Buddhist family. She began her path of meditation in 1986 with Thay Thich Nhat Hanh in the Mahayana tradition. In 1994, she met Venerable Khippapanno, and his kindness and wisdom inspired Lienchi to practice in the Theravada tradition. Since 1998, Lienchi has been visiting Asia regularly and has practiced with Luang Por Sumedho, Sayadaw U Pandita, and Sayadaw U Tejaniya.
Lienchi has been ordained 3 times and has attended many retreats ranging from 10 days to 2 years with Venerable Khippapanno, Luang Por Sumedho, Sayadaw U Pandita, Sayadaw U Tejaniya, and other IMS and IRC teachers in the US.
In 2015, Lienchi left her career as an architect to practice full-time in Burma with her primary teacher, Sayadaw U Tejaniya, for 2 years.
In early 2017, the InsightLA Meditation Organization founded by Mrs. Trudy Goodman invited Lienchi to teach. Both of her teachers: Ngai Kim Trieu and Sayadaw U Tejaniya encouraged her to share her understandings and experiences of meditation with other yogis. Since then, Lienchi has been sharing how she knows the mind through a natural and relaxed continuity. She has a practical, intuitive, and compassionate approach to the development of wisdom through the cultivation of awareness.
Currently, Lienchi is working with number meditation centers in the US and providing online help for many yogis in many different countries around the world.

Bhikkhu Rāhula ordained and received direct guidance from the Venerable Sayadaw U Tejaniya in 2004. In 2011 he started studies of the Suttas and the Abhidhamma in Macau with Ven. Sayadaw Dr. Ukkamsacara and later with the most Venerable Sayadaw Dr. Nandamālābhivaṃsa, who is his preceptor. For the last six years he has offered a weekly course on applied Abhidhamma for participants of all ages in Mexico. At present he is continuing studies of the Dhamma Vinaya at Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary in Taiping, Malaysia under the guidance of Ven. Ariyadhammika. For the past four years Bhante has been developing the Mexican Buddhist Center to propagate the Buddha’s teaching in his native country.

‘Ven. Vīrañāṇi began to practice meditation in 1979, as a scientist and conservation biologist in Hawai’I and New Zealand. In the mid-1990s, she began to practice more intensively, and in 2003 took novice ordination in the Burmese lineage of Mahasi Sayadaw beginning a four-year period devoted to intensive practice. She took permanent ordination in Burma with Sayadaw U Pandita on New Year 2006, and now mostly resides at the Chanmyay Myaing Meditation Centre North of Yangon. She teaches loving-kindness and vipassanā meditation retreats worldwide.
She was one of the editors (for Pali and English) of the translation from the Burmese of Mahasi Sayadaw’s Manual of Insight recently published by Wisdom Publications.
In 2008 she co-founded Metta In Action, a charity devoted to offering Burmese people in need the means and skills to help themselves.”

Kamala Masters began practicing meditation in the mid-seventies attending retreats in the Theravada tradition. In 1977 she met Anagarika Munindra, her first teacher, who taught her the value of being mindful in everyday life. In 1985, she began to practice vipassana and metta meditations intensively with Sayadaw U Pandita with whom she temporarily ordained as a Buddhist nun in 2001 and 2003. In 2005, she began practicing cittanupassana, contemplation of mind, with Sayadaw U Tejaniya. She integrates this teaching with what she has learned from her other respected teachers.
Since the early nineties, Kamala has been teaching in the United States and abroad, and is a Guiding Teacher at the Insight Meditation Society. In 1995 she co-founded Vipassana Metta Foundation with Steve Armstrong, developing the Maui Dhamma Sanctuary for self-reliant students to practice. She served as an editor on the Vipassana Metta Foundation Translation Committee for Mahasi Sayadaw's Manual of Insight, published by Wisdom Publications in 2016.
Kamala strives for extended periods of self-retreat each year. She is grateful for the opportunity to serve and to grow in the Dhamma.

Bhante Kumāra (Lay name: Liew Chin Leag) was ordained a Buddhist monk in 1999 at the age of 27 by Sayadaw U Revata.
He has been guided by

• Bhaddanta Aggacitta Mahāthera in the Vinaya, the Suttas and Pāli language. The mahāthera also inspired him to be open to Dhamma teachings beyond orthodoxy and tradition, so long as they lead to the ending of suffering.
• Sayadaw U Tejaniya in the right view and attitude of spiritual cultivation leading to the ending of suffering.
• Luang Por Gunhah to always be interested to improve himself as a practicing monk.

With his previous training in education, he shares the Dhamma, especially on meditation (using English, Mandarin and Hokkien) with Buddhists and non-Buddhists too.
Besides aiming to be a better person and inspiring others in the same, he also aims to be free from himself.

Shaila Catherine is the founder of Insight Meditation South Bay, a meditation group in Silicon Valley, and also Bodhi Courses, an online Buddhist classroom. She has been practicing meditation since 1980, with more than nine years of accumulated silent retreat experience. She has taught since 1996 in the USA, and internationally. Shaila studied with several Asian masters in India, Thailand, and Nepal, including H. W. L. Poonja, Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche, and Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, in addition to the founders of several western meditation centers including Christopher Titmuss and Joseph Goldstein. She completed a one-year intensive meditation retreat with the focus on concentration and jhana, and authored Focused and Fearless: A Meditator’s Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity. Shaila practiced under the guidance of Venerable Pa-Auk Sayadaw from 2006-2015, and authored Wisdom Wide and Deep: A Practical Handbook for Mastering Jhana and Vipassana to help make this traditional approach to meditative training accessible to western practitioners.
In 2014, Shaila founded Bodhi Courses to develop and offer teachings in an online classroom.