The Gay Buddhist Forum by GBF

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...

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...

In this question/response session, Vimalasara highlights the 8-Step Recovery Program, consisting of: 1. Accepting that this human life will bring suffering 2. Seeing how we create extra suffering in our lives 3. Recognizing impermanence shows us that our suffering can end 4. Being willing to step onto the path of recovery, and discover freedom 5. Transforming our speech, actions, and livelihood 6....

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...

Initially interested in exploring non-duality, cosmology and quantum mechanics, Jokai found the universe full of paradox.  In this talk, he shares his own discovery of Buddhism and the practice of meditation. Through his initial work with Zen koans he arrived at a sense of emptiness, non-being and 'becoming nobody'. Jokai recounts his strong attraction to early practitioners of meditatio...

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...

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.” ______...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Tempel Smith has been practicing Insight and Metta meditation since 1989, including a year as a fully ordained monk in Burma. He is the founder of BASE (Buddhist Alliance for Social Engagement) House, a collective of socially engaged dharma practitioners. In 2003, while directing young adult programs for the Buddhist Peace Fellowship in Oakland, Calif.,Tempel launched the West Coast teen retreat p...

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...

Melvin Escobar is a bilingual/bicultural Dharma teacher, licensed psychotherapist, and certified yoga instructor. He is a graduate of EBMC’s Commit to Dharma, and for more than a decade has served EBMC in a variety of roles, including on the development team for Resilience, Refuge and (R)evolution, a six-month leadership program for people of color. He has devoted 25 years to serving people from m...

Devin Berry has been practicing Insight meditation since 1999. He regularly teaches at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS). Devin has undertaken many periods of silent long-term retreat practice. He is a community teacher at East Bay Meditation center in Oakland, CA where he co-founded both the teen and men of color sanghas. Devin recently relocated to western Massachusetts from the San Francisco...

James Baraz has been a meditation teacher since 1978. He is creator and teacher of the Awakening Joy course (since 2003). He leads retreats, workshops and classes in U.S and abroad. He is a Co-founding Teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and co-author of Awakening Joy, the book based on the course (with Shoshana Alexander). He is a Guiding Teacher for One Earth Sangha, a website devoted to e...

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...

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...

Trip Weil has been practicing in the Theravadan tradition since 2004. He is a graduate of Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leader and Dedicated Practitioner programs. Trip serves on the board of San Francisco Insight, where he also leads sitting groups and teaches meditation classes. He is a psychotherapist in private practice in San Francisco and a former attorney. ______________  To support our ef...

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...

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...

Dale Borglum founded and directed the Hanuman Foundation Dying Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the first residential facility in the United States to support conscious dying. Working with Ram Dass and Stephen Levine, Dale helped found the conscious dying movement in the West. He has been the Executive Director of the Living/Dying Project in Santa Fe and since 1986 in the San Francisco Bay Area. He...

What are you fishing for? In this talk, Paul speaks about practicing without a goal and then finding the unexpected as it arises.  ____________  Ryuten Paul Rosenblum Roshi began his Zen practice in 1968 with Suzuki Roshi at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. He lived there for 10 years and practiced with Suzuki Roshi up until to his death in 1971. He is a Dharma heir to Baker Roshi and Assistant...

Ari Lathuras has been practicing meditation for approximately 35 years. She has received teaching from many renowned Buddhist teachers over the years. Pema Chodron has been one of her main sources of dharma teachings. She studied and practiced with Ani Pema since the mid-90's. About 13 years ago she met Ani Pema's teacher, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche and became a student of his. She has als...

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...