The New Dimensions Café

Tim Zentetsu Burkett, Ph. D. is Guiding Teacher of the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is also a licensed psychologist and a former director of People Incorporated, a large mental health agency in St. Paul, Minnesota. He has been a student of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and later Katagiri Roshi, in whose linage he is a dharma heir. Suzuki Roshi’s book of talks, Zen Mind, Beg...

Dean Sluyter has spent a lifetime learning authentic methods of natural meditation from eastern and western sages and making them accessible to thousands, including prisoners, tech innovators, filmmakers, high school students, and entrepreneurs. He has completed numerous retreats and pilgrimages in Tibet, India, Nepal, and Europe, and for decades has led workshops throughout the United States. He...

Richard Miller, Ph. D. is a clinical psychologist and host of the syndicated talk radio show Mind, Body, Health & Politics. He’s founder of Cokenders Alcohol and Drug Program and has been a faculty member at the University of Michigan and Stanford University. He also served as advisor on the President’s Commission on Mental Health and a founding board member of the Gestalt Institute of San Francis...

Shugri Said Salh was born in Somali in 1974. And in 1992, she immigrated to North America after civil war broke out in her home country. She attended nursing school at Pacific Union College and graduated with honors. From her grandmother and the nomadic community in which she spent her early years, she heard stories and learned of their power to entertain, teach, and transform. She now lives in No...

Robert Thurman, Ph. D. is the retired professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist studies at Columbia University as well as cofounder and president of Tibet House which is dedicated to the service of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the people of Tibet. He’s been a close friend of the Dalai Lama for over 50 years and is a passionate activist for the rights of the Tibetan people. He is a skilled translator o...

Brant Cortright is a clinical psychologist and Professor of Psychology at California Institute of Integral Studies. His consulting practice specializes in cutting-edge brain health and neuroscience-informed depth therapy. He’s the author of Psychotherapy and Spirit: Theory and Practice in Transpersonal Psychotherapy (Suny Series, Philosophy of Psychology) (State University of New York Press 1997),...

Gail Brenner, Ph. D. is a clinical psychologist and blogger. She is the author of The End of Self-Help: Discovering Peace and Happiness Right at the Heart of Your Messy, Scary, Brilliant Life (Ananda Press 2015) Interview Date : 6/25/2015   Tags: Gail Brenner, happiness, thoughts and feelings, emotions, law of attraction, attention, negative thoughts, self-criticism, affirmations, we are...

Ethan Nichtern is a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition and the founder of the Interdependence Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to secular Buddhist study as it applies to transformational activism, mindful arts and media projects, and Western psychology. Nichtern has taught meditation and Buddhist studies classes and retreats across the United States since 2002. He is bas...

Jane Hirshfield is the author of nine books of poetry and two collections of essays. She has edited and co-translated four books presenting the work of world poets from the past. Her books have received the Poetry Center Book Award, the California Book Award, and the Donald Hal-Jane Kenyon Prize in American Poetry. Her poems appear in a wide range of prestigious outlets. A resident of Northern Cal...

Lisa Broderick earned her BA from Stanford University and an MBA from Duke University. She’s a Transcendental Meditation ™ Sidha and has attended the Monroe Institute for the exploration of expanded states of consciousness. For 15 years she studied imagery and dream reading at the American Institute for Mental Imagery. She currently runs a business consultancy based in New York City that helps soc...

Terry Patten is the founder of A New Republic of the Heart, a co-creative social experiment in Being of Benefit. He’s a philosopher, activist, social entrepreneur, and teacher of integral practice and transformation and has taught Integral Life Practice to over ten thousand people. Terry also founded the consciousness technology company Tools for Exploration and led the team at the HeartMath Insti...

The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. was the catalyst that sparked Larry Ward's journey into a life of planetary peacemaking. He's been subjected to racial profiling and has experienced a bombing in his home in Idaho. He was able to move past these traumas when his path led him to the introduction of Buddhist practice in Calcutta in 1977. Then when he met Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in 1991,...

Joel Fotinos is a vice president at Penguin Random House Publishers and publisher of the Tarcher/Penguin imprint. He’s also a licensed minister with the Centers for Spiritual Living. He is the author and coauthor of several books including The Prayer Chest (Doubleday Religion 2007), Multiply Your Blessings (Hampton Roads 2012), A Little Daily Wisdom (Paraclete Press 2009), Think and Grow Rich Star...

Father Matthew Fox, Ph. D. was a member of the Dominican order of the Catholic Church for 34 years. He was silenced for a year and later expelled from the Dominican order under the Papal Sees of John Paul II and Benedict the XVI. He then joined the Episcopal Church to work with young people and to create postmodern forms of ritual and worship known as The Cosmic Mass. He is the cofounder of the Or...

Michael Meade is a renowned storyteller, author, scholar of mythology, and student of ritual in traditional cultures. He has scoured the world to bring to us meaningful folk tales that tap into ancestral sources of wisdom and acts as a guide to connect them to the stories we are living today. Meade is the founder of Mosaic Multicultural Foundation. He also offers regular Living Myths Podcasts and...

Sy Montgomery is a naturalist, documentary scriptwriter and author of many books, which often include stories of her encounters with animals. During research for her books, films, and articles, Sy Montgomery has been chased by an angry silver back gorilla in Zaire and bitten by a vampire bat in Costa Rica. She worked in a pit of 18,000 snakes in Manitoba and handled a wild tarantula in French Guia...

Regina Louise is a teacher and coach on advocacy work. Her memoir was featured in a Lifetime movie, I Am Somebody’s Child. She’s a Hoffman Process teacher. She is the author of two memoirs: Somebody’s Someone: A Memoir (Agate Bolden 2008) and Someone Has Led This Child To Believe: A Memoir  (Agate Bolden 2018), as well as Permission Granted: Kick-Ass Strategies to Bootstrap Your Way to Uncond...

Patrice Vecchione is a poet, author, and artist. She teaches creative writing retreats, and collage and poetry workshops. She has also worked with children, leading classes in poetry and the imagination in elementary, middle, and high schools. She is the author of several books including Writing and the Spiritual Life: Finding Your Voice by Looking Within (McGraw Hill 2001) and Step Into Nature: N...

Barbara Marx Hubbard, Ph. D (1929-2019) shares with us ways we can be conscious evolutionaries. She was a visionary futurist and evolutionary educator. She was the cofounder and chair of the board of The Foundation for Conscious Evolution and was a guide and teacher for The Shift Network's Agents of Conscious Evolution training. She was the author of : Birth 2012 and Beyond: Humanity's Great Shift...

Laura Basha, Ph. D. holds a combined doctorate in clinical and organizational psychology. She’s an international consultant in leadership development and a personal coach. And she is a fine artist whose paintings reside in many private collections. She is the author of The Inward Outlook (Xlibris 2014) Interview Date : 4/9/2015    Tags: Laura Basha, creating your response to your ex...

Bodhipaksa was born Graeme Stephen in Scotland and currently lives and teaches in New Hampshire. He is a Buddhist teacher and author who has been practicing within the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order since 1982 and has been a member of this order since 1993. Bodhipaksa runs the online meditation center, Wildmind, to increase awareness of the positive effects of meditation. His published...

Priscilla Stuckey is a writer, book editor, scholar, and Earth-advocate. She teaches humanities at Prescott College and holds a Ph. D. in religious studies and feminist theory from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. She is the author of Kissed by a Fox: And Other Stories of Friendship in Nature (Counterpoint 2012)   Interview Date : 1/21/2013    Tags: Priscilla...

Dr. Jed Diamond, Ph. D., is a licensed psychotherapist, a founding member of the American Society of Men’s Health, and an internationally respected leader in the men's health movement. He’s the Founder and Director of MenAlive , a health program that helps men live long and well. Though focused on men’s health, MenAlive is also for women who care about the health of the men in their lives. Je...

Rabbi Paul J. Citrin has served various congregations as a rabbi for over 40 years. He is retired from the pulpit, but continues to teach in synagogues and community centers. He is the author of several books including Gates of Repentance for Young People (Paul Abrams, Judith) (CCAR Press 2009), Ten Sheaves: A Collection of Sermons and Articles (2014), Lights In The Forest: Rabbis Respond To 12 Es...

Belleruth Naparstek is a psychotherapist, author, and guided imagery pioneer, She, along with George Klein, launched the Health Journeys guided imagery audio series in 1991. Since then, this audio library has expanded to include over 250 carefully curated, science-based meditations that target a wide range of physical and mental health conditions. Many major medical institutions, departments of co...