Meditation Teacher

Camille Hykes has practiced and studied in the Nyingma and Kagyu traditions of Tibetan Buddhism since 1995. Intensive solitary and group retreats, including 100-day retreats, have helped to fuel her practice. Direct experience of the sacred nature of the Earth illumines the indwelling openness of our hearts, and such teaching has also been of the essence for Camille.She is a student of the Diamond Approach, an open-ended path of inquiry into the immediacy of our personal experience. Gesture of Awareness, a unique means of exploring our essential nature through the body, has been vital for her, too, and she is authorized to teach this way of engaging life in the present. As a meditation teacher with Natural Dharma Fellowship since its founding, she co-directs (with Bob Morrison) NDF’s margha program, which offers year-long training in natural meditation and bodhicitta practices. In her capacity as a book editor, Camille has worked closely with such teachers of the Dharma as Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo and Charles Genoud, as well as many literary writers of distinction for over twenty years.

Meditation Teacher

Laura has been practicing meditation since 1988 when she began attending retreats led by Baba Ram Dass. In the early 1990’s she became a Dzogchen practitioner and a student of Lama Surya Das. Laura was a practice leader for Cambridge Dzogchen Sangha for many years. She has been a student of Lama Willa Miller since 2008. Laura resides in North Andover, MA where she is director and meditation teacher for Great Pond Sangha, which she and her husband Brad co-founded in 2004. She is a poet, psychotherapist, homeschooling mother of two sons, active in North Parish Unitarian Universalist Congregation, and especially interested in sharing the Dharma with children and families.

Movement Teacher, Chair of NDF Movement Committee

A licensed physical therapist (B.S. McGill University, 1983), Reiki practitioner, certified Shake Your Soul teacher and certified fitness trainer, Janine augments her classes with aspects of therapy, healing, and fitness for an integrated experience.
Janine began her own yoga practice in 1992. Since then, she participated in a yoga teacher training program led by Sarah Powers in California (in 2000) and regularly enhances her practice with workshops, extended retreats and inner work.  Janine teaches both a yin and yang style of yoga, as well as meditation.  Yin yoga is a quiet, deep and passive floor practice while the yang style is vinyasa-based (gentle flow) with a slow and therapeutic approach.

Other influential teachers have been those of the Tibetan Buddhist lineage – Lama Willa Miller, Lama John Makransky, Brendan Kennedy, Lama Surya Das, Charles Genoud, and Pema Chodron – and Buddhist psychologists Jennifer and John Welwood, Tara Brach, and Jack Kornfield.

In 2009 Janine met Daniel Leven, founder of Shake Your Soul® and the Leven Institute, and immediately knew that she wanted to offer another type of movement class focused on creativity, fun and great music. Shake Your Soul® classes were the perfect fit.

Janine is committed to the path of healing and transformation in her own life and helps others through her classes, workshops, retreats, Reiki and private sessions.  She also volunteers teaching meditation classes at the Suffolk County House of Corrections.

Contemplative Care Instructor

Cheryl A. Giles, PsyD, is the Francis Greenwood Peabody Senior Lecturer on Pastoral Care and Counseling at Harvard Divinity School where she has been a member of the faculty since 1997. Her primary research interests are identifying the role of risk and resilience in developing healthy adolescents and contemplative care for the dying. Professor Giles received training and certification in end-of-life care from Upaya Zen Center, and teaches courses on contemplative care of the dying and mentors students who are preparing for healthcare chaplaincy and research on the psychology of contemplative care. Professor Giles is the co-editor with Lama Willa of The Arts of Contemplative Care: Pioneering Voices in Buddhist Chaplaincy and Pastoral Work (Wisdom Press, 2012). She has authored articles on contemplative care of the dying and preparing clinicians to become compassionate caregivers. At Natural Dharma Fellowship, Cheryl teaches contemplative care retreats, and is on the Board of Directors.

Meditation Teacher

Jane lives in Portland, Maine. She has been a Feldenkrais Movement Teacher for twenty years, is a Proprioceptive Writing teacher, and leads a weekly meditation group in the practices of Natural Love and Awareness and Natural Compassion and Awareness. She has been a student of Lama Tsultrim Allione, and for the last eleven years has been a student of Lama Surya Das, Lama John Makransky and Lama Willa Miller.

Dharma Teacher

John Makransky, PhD has practiced meditations of compassion and wisdom from Tibetan Buddhism for 30 years and has pioneered new ways of taking them into the worlds of social service and social justice by making them accessible to people of all backgrounds and faiths. A professor of Buddhism and Comparative Theology at Boston College, John is also a senior advisor to Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche’s Centre for Buddhist Studies in Nepal, affiliated with Kathmandu University and Rangjung Yeshe Institute. In 2000, John was ordained a Tibetan Buddhist lama in the lineage of Nyoshul Khenpo and Lama Surya Das. As a meditation teacher at retreats across the U.S., John became known for guiding participants in their discovery of innate wisdom and love. He is the guiding meditation teacher of the Foundation for Active Compassion, and the author of Awakening through Love: Unveiling Your Deepest Goodness.

Dharma Teacher

Lama Rod Owens is a graduate of the traditional 3 Year Retreat program at Kagyu Thubten Choling Monastery where he received his teaching authorization from his root teacher, The Venerable Lama Norlha Rinpoche. He is currently a resident teacher with Natural Dharma Fellowship in Cambridge, MA and is pursuing his graduate studies in Buddhism at Harvard Divinity School. He has served as the Lama and Program Director of Kagyu DC, a Tibetan Buddhist Dharma Center and community in Washington, D.C. Lama Rod specializes in applying the teachings of Mahamudra meditation in exploring racial and gender constructs, healing woundedness from trauma and other violence, as well as integrating spirituality and sexuality. Lama Rod is also a practicing reiki master.

Dharma Teacher

Since graduating from the traditional Tibetan Buddhist three-year retreat under the guidance of Lama Norlha Rinpoche, Lama Samten has devoted her energy and creativity towards connecting a wide range of students to their innate compassion and embodied wisdom. With an accessible and gentle presence she gently guides students using the teachings of the Buddha Dharma and yogic practices. In addition to being a resident teacher at Wonderwell Mountain Refuge, Lama Samten helped to found a retreat center in the Smoky Mountains outside of Knoxville, TN (www.mocd.org). She is passionate about bringing to light the tantric elements inherent in all paths– particularly those of healers, artists, and earth protectors. Her own path is currently unfolding as an exploration of ways in which the “instrument of the heart,” Herbie Hancock’s description of the innate artist in all lives, can be tuned to its own particular gifts in order to transmit expressions of awakening wisdom and compassion in the sacred world.

Dharma Lopon, Associate Spiritual Director

Elizabeth Monson, PhD, is the Associate Spiritual Director of Natural Dharma Fellowship and the Managing Teacher at Wonderwell Mountain Refuge. She has been studying, practicing and teaching Tibetan Buddhism in the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages for over twenty years. She has studied with Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Pema Chodron, Tulku Orgyen Rinpoche, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Gyalse Tendzin Rabgye and others.

Elizabeth is interested in developing practical methods for incorporating the Buddhist teachings into everyday life through the practices of kindness and compassion as well as focusing on ways to recognize the natural state in every moment of our lives. She holds a PhD in the Study of Religion from Harvard University with a focus in Buddhist Studies and ethics. Her research interests include the ways in which Himalayan Buddhist biographical, autobiographical, narrative, liturgical, and meditative literature work to provide a space for meditation on what it means to live a good human life. Elizabeth is the co-translator of More Than a Madman: The Divine Words of Drukpa Kunley (2014), a translation of the autobiography of Drukpa Kunley. She is currently a lecturer at the Harvard Divinity School.

Founding Teacher, Spiritual Director

Willa B. Miller, PhD is the Founder and Spiritual Director of Natural Dharma Fellowship in Boston, MA and its retreat center Wonderwell Mountain Refuge in Springfield, NH. She was authorized as a dharma teacher and lineage holder (lama) in the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism after completion of two consecutive three-year retreats in the nineties. She has also practiced in the Shangpa and Nyingma lineages. She is editor, author and translator (respectively) of three books: The Arts of Contemplative Care: Pioneering Voices in Buddhist Chaplaincy and Pastoral Work (2012), Everyday Dharma: Seven Weeks to Finding the Buddha in You (2009), and Essence of Ambrosia (2005). In 2013, she received a doctorate from Harvard University in Religion, and is currently Visiting Lecturer in Buddhist Ministry at Harvard Divinity School. Her academic teaching interests include Tantra and the Body, Buddhism and Ecology, and Buddhist Contemplative Care, among other topics. Outside of academia, her teaching specialties include the body as a door to awakening, natural meditation (mahamudra), and heart-cultivation (lojong). She is interested in the practical integration of meditation into daily life, and has participated as an advisor in several scientific studies on meditation. Her teachers and guides have included Kalu Rinpoche, Dilgo Khentse Rinpoche, Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Lama Norlha Rinpoche, and others. She currently derives inspiration for her practice and teaching from Lama John Makransky, Anam Thubten and Tsoknyi Rinpoche. She lives in Arlington, MA with her husband and two dogs, and frequently visits Wonderwell Mountain Refuge.

Meditation Teacher

Susan Malloy has been practicing meditation since 2003, when she became a student of Thich Nhat Hanh. In 2004 she was one of the founding members of Great Pond Sangha in North Andover, Massachusetts. Since then she has participated in many intensive retreats in the Dzochen and Mahamudra tradition. She began studying with Lama Willa in 2008. Susan has enjoyed serving as a mitra in the Margha program since 2012. Currently she co-leads a Margha group that meets in North Andover. She has been student of Lama Surya Das and Lama John Makransky since 2005. With Charles Genoud she made pilgrimages to India and Tibet. The teachings of Anam Thubten, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, Pema Chodron and Charlotte Joko Beck have also been important influences on her practice.

Susan is a member of North Parish of North Andover Unitarian Universalist. As a speech language pathologist she works with people of all ages who use augmentative and alternative communication. She loves to read, travel and enjoy the outdoors. Susan is married to Phil Malloy, and they have two adult children.

Meditation Teacher

Joel Baehr, an ordained a Unitarian Universalist minister since 1967, is a graduate of Haverford College, Union Theological Seminary, and the Westchester Institute For Training in Psychoanalysis. He has practiced as a psychotherapist and an organizational consultant since 1970, integrating spiritual practice with psychology and ordinary life. He has studied and practiced with teachers in many traditions including Quaker, Sufi, Roman Catholic, and Siddha Yoga. Joel fell in love with Tibetan Buddhism in 1992 while retreating at Gampo Abbey and thereafter became a student of Lama Surya Das, Lama John Makransky, Chokyi Nyima, Lama Willa Miller, and others. At the request of Surya Das, Joel wrote and taught for years an online course, “Buddhism and Everyday Life,” which enrolled hundreds of students. He is now a Mitra in the NDF’s Margha program; a meditation teacher and Board member of Foundation for Active Compassion; and a teacher and practice leader in a number of independent sanghas: at First Parish, Cambridge, MA; Rising Light Sangha, Saranac Lake, NY; Snow Lotus Sangha in Watertown, NY; and a weekly online group.

Buddhist Chaplain

Jean Ashland is an interfaith chaplain and is ordained as a lay Buddhist minister by Roshi Joan Halifax. She completed a 2 year Buddhist chaplaincy program at the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe NM in 2015. Lama Willa served as her spiritual director during this training program. Jean is engaged in hospice and hospital based chaplaincy in Belfast, Maine where she lives with her husband Hank. One of her interests is caring for the caregiver and she has offered compassionate care training to both nurses and hospice volunteers. Jean has been engaged with Buddhism since 2002 and she became a student of Lama Willa’s in 2009. She has been a mitra for the NDF Margha program since 2015. Other training has included diamond approach workshops, Vipassana retreats, and retreats with Thich Nhat Hanh, Lama John Makransky, and Anam Thubten. Jean has also been a healthcare provider for almost 30 years with a doctorate in the field of speech language pathology. In this capacity she has provided care to medically fragile children in acute care hospital settings that has informed her spiritual practice and contemplative care for individuals who are seriously ill or dying.

Meditation Teacher

Camille Hykes has practiced and studied in the Nyingma and Kagyu traditions of Tibetan Buddhism since 1995. Intensive solitary and group retreats, including 100-day retreats, have helped to fuel her practice. Direct experience of the sacred nature of the Earth illumines the indwelling openness of our hearts, and such teaching has also been of the essence for Camille.She is a student of the Diamond Approach, an open-ended path of inquiry into the immediacy of our personal experience. Gesture of Awareness, a unique means of exploring our essential nature through the body, has been vital for her, too, and she is authorized to teach this way of engaging life in the present. As a meditation teacher with Natural Dharma Fellowship since its founding, she co-directs (with Bob Morrison) NDF’s margha program, which offers year-long training in natural meditation and bodhicitta practices. In her capacity as a book editor, Camille has worked closely with such teachers of the Dharma as Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo and Charles Genoud, as well as many literary writers of distinction for over twenty years.

Meditation Teacher

Laura has been practicing meditation since 1988 when she began attending retreats led by Baba Ram Dass. In the early 1990’s she became a Dzogchen practitioner and a student of Lama Surya Das. Laura was a practice leader for Cambridge Dzogchen Sangha for many years. She has been a student of Lama Willa Miller since 2008. Laura resides in North Andover, MA where she is director and meditation teacher for Great Pond Sangha, which she and her husband Brad co-founded in 2004. She is a poet, psychotherapist, homeschooling mother of two sons, active in North Parish Unitarian Universalist Congregation, and especially interested in sharing the Dharma with children and families.

Meditation Teacher, Chair of NDF Movement Committee

Janine is the owner of Tranquil Flame Yoga and Wellness in Revere, MA. As a licensed physical therapist (McGill University, 1983), Reiki practitioner, certified Shake Your Soul dance teacher and certified fitness trainer, she augments her yoga classes with aspects of therapy, healing, and fitness for an integrated experience.

She began her own yoga practice in 1992 and then participated in a yoga teacher training program led by Sarah Powers, a yoga and meditation teacher, in California (2000). Janine regularly enhances her practice with workshops, extended retreats and inner work. She teaches both yin and yang styles of yoga, various movement classes and meditation.

Since the early 2000’s, Janine’s path has been deeply influenced by other teachers of the Tibetan Buddhist lineage – Lama Willa Miller, Lama John Makransky, Brendan Kennedy, Anam Thubten, Pema Chodron, Lama Surya Das, and Charles Genoud – as well as Buddhist psychologists Tara Brach, Jennifer and John Welwood, and Jack Kornfield.

She is committed to the path of healing and transformation in her own life and helps others through her classes, workshops, retreats, Reiki and private sessions. Janine also volunteers teaching meditation classes at the Suffolk County House of Corrections.

Meditation Teacher

Gaelle Desbordes has been practicing and studying Tibetan Buddhism since 2006 and is a student of Lama Willa Miller. She works as a research fellow at the Massachusetts General Hospital where she is conducting research on how meditation practice affects the brain and body. She is one of the mitras in the Margha program.

Meditation Teacher

Anastra has been a practicing Buddhist since early 2002, and was ordained in the Triratna Buddhist Order, an International Fellowship of Buddhists, in 2008. Within the past several years, Anastra’s growing interest in Dzogchen and Mahamudra teachings have brought her under the guidance of Lama Willa Miller and Lopon Liz Monson. With a Master’s and Doctorate in Psychology, Anastra has, for the past ten years, applied the range of her diversified professional experience to working with elders/seniors as an interfaith chaplain in a Continuum Care Community and, more recently, as a resident service coordinator in HUD subsidized housing for seniors. Anastra loves working with this population. From them, she has learned how the aging process may be viewed as a powerful catalyst for realizing one’s innate spiritual essence and for highlighting impermanence as a dynamic, elegant force for transformation.

Meditation Teacher

David has been practicing Buddhist meditation since the 1970s. He came up through the Theravada and Zen traditions before finding his home in Tibetan Buddhism in 1992, first with with Lama Suryadas and then with Tsoknyi, Rinpoche, Chokyi Nyima, Rinpoche, Anam Thubten, Rinpoche, Lama John McKransky and others. He has been a student of Lama Willa since meeting her in 2012 and a Mitra with the Margha Program since 2014.

David’s career has been in human services as a child and family therapist and as a hospice social worker. He is currently working as a Parent Coordinator with the Judicial System of the state of Vermont, interfacing between high conflict families and the courts to which they so often turn in their efforts to find relief from the conflicts they experience.

Meditation Teacher, Chair of NDF Movement Committee

Janine is the owner of Tranquil Flame Yoga and Wellness in Revere, MA. As a licensed physical therapist (McGill University, 1983), Reiki practitioner, certified Shake Your Soul dance teacher and certified fitness trainer, she augments her yoga classes with aspects of therapy, healing, and fitness for an integrated experience.

She began her own yoga practice in 1992 and then participated in a yoga teacher training program led by Sarah Powers, a yoga and meditation teacher, in California (2000). Janine regularly enhances her practice with workshops, extended retreats and inner work. She teaches both yin and yang styles of yoga, various movement classes and meditation.

Since the early 2000’s, Janine’s path has been deeply influenced by other teachers of the Tibetan Buddhist lineage – Lama Willa Miller, Lama John Makransky, Brendan Kennedy, Anam Thubten, Pema Chodron, Lama Surya Das, and Charles Genoud – as well as Buddhist psychologists Tara Brach, Jennifer and John Welwood, and Jack Kornfield.

She is committed to the path of healing and transformation in her own life and helps others through her classes, workshops, retreats, Reiki and private sessions. Janine also volunteers teaching meditation classes at the Suffolk County House of Corrections.