The Gay Buddhist Forum by GBF

Karen Van Dine connected with the San Francisco gay community in 1985 as a member of Radiant Light Ministries, where she served as a prayer counselor. Through the AIDS Epidemic of the 80’s and 90’s, Karen worked with the San Francisco Healing Circle and R.L.M., leading meditations, memorials and assisting many in conscious dying. After her time as a student at Tassajara Zen Monastery and retreats...

Larry Robinson has been a practicing Buddhist for 47 years, mostly in the Zen and Vipassana traditions. He is a member of the Occidental Laguna Sangha in Sebastopol, studying with Bruce Fortin in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi. A long-time environmental and social justice activist, he is a retired ecopsychologist and former mayor of Sebastopol. He serves on the board of directors of the Center for Cl...

Heather Sundberg began teaching meditation in 1999. She has completed the four-year Spirit Rock’s Insight Meditation Society Teacher Training. Beginning her own meditation practice in her late teens, for 20+ years, Heather has studied with senior teachers in the Insight Meditation and Tibetan traditions, and has sat 1-3 months of retreat a year for the last 15+ years. She is a teacher for Mountain...

Two days before an election of historic consequence, the topic "Deconstructing our Illusions" will focus on our role in transformation. We will explore how our practice challenges inherited frameworks of perception such as white privilege, calls us to expand our consciousness, and impels us to act for justice and equality. Examining the life of the Buddha, we will trace how the themes of...

John Martin teaches Vipassana (Insight), Metta (Loving Kindness) and LGBTQIA+ meditation retreats. He leads an on-going weekly Monday evening meditation group in San Francisco. He serves as Co-chair of the Guiding Teachers Council for Spirit Rock. John is also currently serving as Interim Executive Director for Spirit Rock. His practice has been supported by twelve years as a hospice volunteer: in...

Prasadachitta was ordained into the Triratna Buddhist Order in 2011 and he became the Chair of the San Francisco Buddhist Center in April 2022. He was born on a “back to the land” commune in rural Northern California and that background has inspired his engagement with others in building the SFBC’s rural meditation center called Dharmadhara. He also helped to establish a community of sangha member...

JD Doyle serves as a core teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center (EBMC) and has served as a board member and was the cofounder of the LGBTQI meditation group. JD is in the Spirit Rock Meditation Center teacher-training program and was in the Dedicated Practitioner Program (DPP2) and the Community Dharma Leader Program (CDL4). JD has practiced Buddhism since 1995 in the U.S., Thailand, and Burma...

Dorothy Hunt serves as spiritual director of Moon Mountain Sangha and was the founder of the San Francisco Center for Meditation and Psychotherapy. She is the author of Only This!, Leaves from Moon Mountain, and Ending the Search: From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness, as well as articles published on nondual wisdom and psychotherapy. She teaches at the request and in the spiritual lin...

Alistair Shanks is the Volunteer Program Manager at Zen Caregiving Project where he has worked since 2004, first as a hospice volunteer and training facilitator, and in his current position since 2016. He completed his clinical residency, (CPE), at UCSF and currently serves as a chaplain at both the Parnassus and Mission Bay campuses. He has a Master’s degree from the Institute of Buddhist Studies...

Pamela Weiss is a dual-lineage Buddhist teacher in Soto Zen and Theravada, and the author of “A Bigger Sky: Awakening a Fierce Feminine Buddhism." She sits on the Spirit Rock Teacher Council, and teaches through San Francisco Insight, San Francisco Zen Center and Brooklyn Zen Center. Pamela lives in San Francisco with her husband and little dog, Grover. ______________  To support our efforts...

Eve Decker has been practicing Insight Meditation since 1991, and has taught groups, daylongs, and short retreats since 2006, particularly at Spirit Rock, the East Bay Meditation Center, and elsewhere in the Bay Area. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley and of Spirit Rock’s Path of Engagement and Community Dharma Leader training programs, and has been trained in the Hakomi approach to body-based psyc...

David Lewis has been following the dharma path for 45 years, has a degree in comparative religious studies, and is a graduate of Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Dedicated Practitioners Program. He teaches Insight Meditation and enjoys sharing the dharma at several sanghas around the Bay Area. He is a proud long-time member of GBF. ______________  To support our efforts to share these talks with LG...

Rev. Keiryū Liên Shutt is a lineage holder in the Shunryu Suzuki tradition. Born to a Buddhist family in Vietnam, she received her meditation training in the Insight and Zen traditions in the US, Thailand, Japan, and Vietnam. She was a founding member of the Buddhists of Color in 1998 and currently is the guiding teacher of Access to Zen, an anti-racist, inclusive sangha and non-profit in the SF B...

Bill Weber is a senior Vipassana practitioner and a graduate from Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leaders program. He has twenty-five years of extensive retreat practice and currently practices at home with his husband or sits with a small group of gay men. He is also a documentary filmmaker and video editor, whose latest projects are “To Be Takei” and “The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin.” ______...

Jennifer Berezan is a unique blend of singer/songwriter, producer, and activist. Over the course of ten albums, she has developed and explored recurring themes with a rare wisdom. Her lifelong involvement in environmental, women’s, and other justice movements as well as an interest in Buddhism and earth-based spirituality are at the heart of her writing. ______________  To support our efforts to s...

David Richo, Ph. D., is a psychotherapist, writer, and workshop leader. He shares his time between Santa Barbara and San Francisco, California. Dave combines psychological and spiritual perspectives in his work. His latest book is Ready: How to Know When to Go and When to Stay. (Shambhala, 2022). The website for books, talks, and events is davericho.com. ______________  To support our efforts to s...

Donald Rothberg, Ph. D., a member of the Teachers Council at Spirit Rock Center, and a teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center, teaches retreats and groups on concentration and insight meditation practice, lovingkindness practice, transforming the judgmental mind, mindful communication, working skillfully with conflict, and socially engaged Buddhism. He has practiced insight meditation since 197...

Ryuko Laura Burges, a lay entrusted dharma teacher in the SotoZen tradition, teaches classes and lectures, and leads retreats in Northern California. A teacher of children for 35 years, she now mentors aspiring teachers. Laura co-founded the Sangha in Recovery Program at the San Francisco Zen Center and is the abiding teacher at Lenox House Meditation Group in Oakland. Shambhala Publishers will be...

René Rivera is a meditation teacher, restorative justice facilitator, and leader, working and learning in all the spaces in-between race, gender, and other perceived binaries, as a queer, mixed-race, trans man. René teaches heart-centered, trauma-informed meditation, at the East Bay Meditation Center and other meditation centers. He has co-led the first residential meditation retreats for transgend...

Eugene Cash is the founding teacher of the San Francisco Insight Meditation Community of San Francisco. He teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and leads intensive meditation retreats internationally. His teaching is influenced by both Burmese and Thai streams of the Theravada tradition as well as Zen and Tibetan Buddhist practice. He is also a teacher of the Diamond Approach, a school of spir...

JD Doyle serves as a core teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center (EBMC) and has served as a board member and was the cofounder of the LGBTQI meditation group. JD is in the Spirit Rock Meditation Center teacher-training program and was in the Dedicated Practitioner Program (DPP2) and the Community Dharma Leader Program (CDL4). JD has practiced Buddhism since 1995 in the U.S., Thailand, and Burma...

Charles Garfield is a psychologist, professor and lecturer, and the author of twelve books including Life's Last Gift. He has been recognized internationally as the founder of Shanti Project, a widely acclaimed AIDS and cancer service organization (www.shanti.org). For more than forty years, he has pioneered the development of healthcare and social service oriented volunteer organizations in...

Vinny Ferraro has been a practitioner of insight meditation (vipassanā) since the mid 90s. He is a co-Founder of the Dharma Punx and he’s been the Guiding Teacher of a Sangha in San Francisco for 15 years. He is also a nationally recognized leader in designing and implementing interventions for at-risk adolescents and is a Senior Trainer for Mindful Schools. In 1987, he was introduced to Service w...

Kevin Griffin is a Buddhist teacher and author known for his innovative work connecting dharma and recovery, especially through his 2004 book "One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps." He has been a Buddhist practitioner for over thirty-five years and a teacher for two decades. He reaches a broad range of audiences in dharma centers, wellness centers, and secular mindfulness...

Steven Tierney is Professor Emeritus of Counseling Psychology at CIIS. Steven began his Buddhist practice in 1993 and is now an ordained priest in the Soto Zen lineage of Suzuki Roshi. He is a licensed psychotherapist in private practice in San Francisco, specializing in addiction and recovery, life transitions and resilience. His therapeutic approaches are grounded in mindfulness-based, trauma-in...