The Gay Buddhist Forum by GBF

Tom Moon has been a practitioner of Vipassana meditation for fifteen years, and his spiritual home is Spirit Rock Meditation Center. He is a psychologist in San Francisco, working primarily with gay men. His chief commitment is in exploring the interface between Buddhist practice and psychotherapy. ______________  To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please...

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...

Joe Goode is the artistic director of The Joe Goode Performance Group, and a professor in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies at UC Berkeley. He has had a meditation practice since 1979, and has incorporated Buddhist principles and meditation practices into his choreographic works. His work blends theater, dance, and spoken word, to focus on the fallibility and imperfection o...

Stuart is degreed from CIIS and Princeton. He has lived the “inner marriage” of kundalini bhakti tantra for 40 years, and chanted Sanskrit benedictions privately for Yanez Drnovsec (chair of Unaligned Nations of the World) and for Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in India. He is the author of "Advanced Spiritual Intimacy" endorsed by Robert Thurman and Ken Wilber and received the only federal grant...

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...

Gary Ost is a retired Episcopal priest living in San Francisco. He began his study of the dharma in 2008, starting with the Shambhala school of Tibetan Buddhism. Since then he has practiced daily samatha-vipassana meditation. He has declared his aspiration to help Christians understand Buddhism better and Buddhists to understand Christianity better. Gary has taken informal bodhisattva vows, and is...

Dhammachari Danadasa has been practicing with the San Francisco Buddhist Center (SFBC) community since 1993 and was ordained in 2011. His current area of exploration is the cultivation of metta (universal loving kindness) as a response to all the hatred, discrimination, and bigotry in the world out there. Through personal anecdotes and experiential exercises, Danadasa will explore our relationship...

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...

Joe Rodriguez is a Soto Zen Buddhist practitioner at San Francisco Zen Center, where he sits on the board committee for diversity, inclusion, and belonging. He is a father, a social impact strategist, and a LGBT+ activist.  https://www.gardnerrodriguez.com/about ______________  To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/ There...

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...

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...

Tom Moon has been a practitioner of Vipassana meditation for fifteen years, and his spiritual home is Spirit Rock Meditation Center. He is a psychologist in San Francisco, working primarily with gay men. His chief commitment is in exploring the interface between Buddhist practice and psychotherapy. ______________  To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please...

Benjamin Young began meditation as part of his spiritual practice when he was in his early twenties. Over the last forty-four years, he has studied many spiritual paths, pursued a number of meditation practices, led spiritual retreats, and given spiritual talks. Benjamin traveled to India for two months in 2001 where he and a close friend took monk’s vows. He has been practicing a Buddhist form of...

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...

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...

In three decades of Buddhist practice and teaching, Martha Boesing has received lay ordination at Clouds in Water Zen Center in St. Paul, MN, taken refuge with Pema Chodron at Gampo Abbey, and continued studies with Pema at the Shambhala Center in Berkeley, CA. Having spent her professional life as a theater artist, she has written over forty produced plays, and led workshops and directed plays fo...

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...

Jon Bernie, author of Ordinary Freedom and The Unbelievable Happiness of What Is, is a contemporary spiritual teacher who offers a compassionate, heart-centered approach to spiritual awakening. A profound enlightenment experience as a teenager ignited Jon’s spiritual search. In his early twenties he ordained as a monk in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, and spent the next four decades practici...

“Gengetsu Junsei” entered formal Buddhist practice in 1993 and received Dharma Transmission in the Soto Zen Buddhist Lineage from Zenkei Blanche Hartman in 2009. Jana led the Street Zendo at 234 Hyde Street, where meditation practices of all kinds are welcome, and was a practice leader of the Gay Buddhist Sangha. Rev. Drakka was a community activist, particularly for the rights of the poor and dis...

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...

Susan Moon is a writer, editor, and lay teacher in the Soto Zen tradition. She leads Buddhist retreats and teaches writing workshops in the U.S. and abroad. Her books include "This Is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity," "The Hidden Lamp: Stories from 25 Centuries of Awakened Women," with co-editor Florence Caplow, and most recently, "What Is Zen? Pl...

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...

Padmatara began meditating in 1989 and became interested in Buddhism in Brighton, England around the same time. She was ordained into the Triratna Buddhist Order in 2005. She loves to share her practice with others through teaching and study, especially on retreats. She has also trained as a focusing guide - a kind of mindful, body-oriented therapy. Padmatara became Center Director of the SFBC 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...

Jonathan Reynolds has trained extensively in the fields of Buddhist meditation, classical yoga, and both Eastern and Western philosophies. His teaching of meditation is influenced by Jack Kornfield, whose wisdom has infused him with compassion, playfulness, and story. Jonathan earned his Masters Degree in Holistic Counseling Psychology from John F. Kennedy University, and his ongoing interests are...