The Gay Buddhist Forum by GBF

Garth Gilchrist has spent his life drawing people close to nature through wilderness adventures, teaching deep nature awareness and sharing his remarkable gift of storytelling—about wild places and the wild landscape of the heart and soul—helping thousands of people draw on their connection with the Great Life that flows through everything. Expect an adventure into your own inner landscapes and st...

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.” ______...

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...

Tempel Smith began practicing meditation in 1989. In 1997 he ordained as a monk in Burma with Sayadaw U Pandita and Pa Auk Sayadaw. Now, back in the Bay Area, he is works on integrating these deep meditative practices into daily life and in his work with the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. Tempel has taught meditation and Buddhist psychology, is the founder of the West Coast Teen Meditation Retreat, an...

Barry has been studying Buddhism for twenty years, practicing meditation, prayer and martial arts. With graduate degrees in psychology, divinity studies and South Asian languages and civilizations, he combines a practice of depth psychotherapy with a study in the history of religions and world mythology. Barry is a licensed psychotherapist practicing in Oakland. He also teaches “Archetypal Mytholo...

Carol Osmer Newhouse has studied Insight Meditation for more than 30 years and has been teaching for 20. She was given Dharma transmission by The Venerable Ruth Denison, student of the great meditation master U Ba Khin of Burma. She has studied with Dr. Rina Sircar of CIIS and Dr Thynn Thynn in Daily Life Practice. She is the founding teacher of the Lesbian Buddhist Sangha in Berkeley, and a Licen...

GBF Sangha members share their favorite inspirational readings of 1-2 minutes in length, along with a brief and succinct personal commentary revealing how the reading has impacted their practice or life. The genre of inspirational readings is limitless, including poetry, scripture, prose —anything that is a source of insight. ______________  To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA...

“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...

Jeffrey Schneider is a priest at the San Francisco Zen Center, where he has lived, worked and practiced since 1978. He is currently the coordinator of Zen Center’s outreach programs and founded, in 2000, the Buddhist recovery programs there. Jeffrey has offered retreats and teachings in a variety of Northern California venues as well as in Texas, Missouri, South Carolina and Virginia. ____________...

This presentation will include beginner movements to practice  ____________  Teng How Bae was born into Buddhism. Born in China but raised in Thailand, he has been influenced by both Chinese and Thai traditions of practice, as Buddhism is a part of Chinese and Thai culture.  Teng How is also a Tai-Qi master teaching every weekend in Dolores Park in San Francisco. He discovered Tai-Qi back in the e...

What would it be like to stop interfering with our experience? To stop filtering each thing that happens to us through our history (why) and our future (what if), but to relax and experience it fully as it happens?  ____________  Dean Bellerby teaches Integral Coaching® practice and ‘A Year To Live’ groups, exploring what it means to be fully human, fully spirit, and fully queer in the world. Dean...

“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...

______________  To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/ There you can:    Donate   Learn how to participate live   Find our schedule of upcoming speakers   Join our mailing list or discussion forum  Enjoy over 900 recorded talks dating back to 1995 CREDITS Audio Production: George Hubbard Producer: Tom Bruein Music/Logo/Ar...

Richard Moon, founder of extraordinarylistenening.com, a website focused on improving human relations and effectiveness, presently works on global problem solving as a senior associate with The Nautilus Institute. He has engaged in international peace building in Cypress and Bosnia with a consortium including The Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy, in Washington, D.C., Conflict Management Group,...

______________  To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/ There you can:    Donate   Learn how to participate live   Find our schedule of upcoming speakers   Join our mailing list or discussion forum  Enjoy over 900 recorded talks dating back to 1995 CREDITS Audio Production: George Hubbard Producer: Tom Bruein Music/Logo/Ar...

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.” ______...

Sean Feit Oakes, PhD (he/him, queer, Puerto Rican and English ancestry, living on unceded Pomo land in NorCal), teaches Buddhism and somatic practice focusing on the integration of meditation, trauma resolution, and social justice. He received teaching authorization from Jack Kornfield, and wrote his dissertation on extraordinary states in Buddhist meditation and experimental dance. He teaches at...

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...

Hozan Alan Senauke is vice-abbot of Berkeley Zen Center in California. He lives at BZC with his wife, Laurie, and their two children. Since 1991 Alan has worked with the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, where he presently serves as senior advisor. He continues to work as a socially engaged Buddhist activist, most recently founding the Clear View Project, developing Buddhist-based resources for relief an...

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...

Richard Shankman lives in Oakland, CA. He has been a meditator since 1970 and teaches regularly at dharma centers and groups throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Richard is a co-founder of both the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies and the Community Partnership for Mindfulness in Education, which brings mindfulness training into the Oakland inner-city schools. Richard is the author of The Experie...

______________  To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/ There you can:    Donate   Learn how to participate live   Find our schedule of upcoming speakers   Join our mailing list or discussion forum  Enjoy over 900 recorded talks dating back to 1995 CREDITS Audio Production: George Hubbard Producer: Tom Bruein Music/Logo/Ar...

Larry Yang is a Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader and leads meditation retreats tailored for men, people of color, the LGBTQ communities, and people in recovery from addiction. He co-leads a meditation group for the LGBTQ community in San Francisco and is a psychotherapist and a consultant in cultural competency. ______________  To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences...

Jurgen Mollers has been practicing Insight meditation for about 15 years. A native German, he came to California in 1992 for post-doc work in philosophy. He is a graduate of Spirit Rock's Dedicated Practitioner Program and is teaching meditation to incarcerated men. In 2003, he founded a company called Storyzon, which helps people preserving life stories. ______________  To support our effort...