Subhana Barzaghi
Subhana has practised meditation for over 20 years, is an acknowledged teacher in both the Insight meditation and Zen Buddhist traditions. She teaches seven-day intensive retreats in India, Australia and New Zealand. In 1996 Subhana became the first Australian Zen Roshi and is the spiritual director of the Sydney and Melbourne Zen Centres. She is also the founder of the Kwan Yin Zen Centre in Lismore. Subhana is the mother of two children and works as a counsellor and psychotherapist in Sydney.
Jeremy Logan
Jeremy has been involved in Insight Meditation since 1984 spending several years in the east and in Europe learning and practicing meditation. He has been teaching retreats throughout NZ since 1992. Jeremy currently lives in the Wairarapa working as manager of a community counselling and family violence prevention centre and has a small private counselling practice.
Sharda Rogell
Sharda has been practising and teaching Buddhist insight meditation for over 30 years and is currently on the Teacher Council at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in northern California near her home. She has been influenced by many different spiritual traditions, including her root teacher, H. W. L. Poonja, during her many trips to India. Sharda is also a student of A. H. Almaas in the Diamond Heart School. She has been teaching in New Zealand since 1991.
Julie Downard
Julie Downard first encountered meditation in 1990 while living in England. Over the next two decades she practiced intensively in England, India, New Zealand and Australia, including a three month silent retreat at Gaia House in Devon, England, before branching out into Zen with two months at San Francisco Zen Centre and a number of retreats in different Zen traditions. Julie particularly enjoys the retreat form of yatra (walking pilgrimage) with its emphasis on walking and practising in nature, and has participated in a number of ten day events in France. She co-founded Southern Insight Meditation in 1998 with an invitation to Subhana Barzaghi to come to Christchurch to teach, and has been teaching retreats and dharma gatherings herself since 2007.
Di Robertson
Di has over 20 years’ experience in insight meditation, with intensive retreats and daily life practice in England and New Zealand. She has taught beginners’ courses since 2000, has led a number of short retreats and co-taught longer retreats with senior teachers. She lives in Christchurch and is a co-founder and trustee of Southern Insight Meditation.
Russel Walker
Russell sat his first retreat in Bodhgaya, India in 1990. He spent the next 10 years sitting retreats, studying the Buddha’s teachings, and training under and teaching with senior teachers at Gaia House, Devon in the UK. He moved back to live in New Zealand in 2000. Meditation practice is integral to Russell navigating life, from appreciating what is sacred and profound to dealing with the mundane. He especially has a deep connection with, and love of nature. Russell currently works full time facilitating rehabilitation programmes and lives in Christchurch with his wife and two sons.
Jill Shepherd
Jill Shepherd began practicing insight meditation in Thailand in 1999, and since that time has lived and worked at several meditation centres and monasteries in the US, Australia, England, and Thailand.
She spent seven years on staff at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, Massachusetts, where she participated in several long retreats and Buddhist study programmes, as well as offering weekly meditation classes at a nearby prison.
She is a graduate of the IMS / Spirit Rock teacher training program in the US, under the guidance of Joseph Goldstein and Gil Fronsdal.
She lives in Aotearoa / New Zealand and is the founding and guiding teacher of Auckland Insight. She teaches internationally, offering insight / vipassanā and brahmavihāra retreats and ongoing study and practice groups focused on bringing the dharma into daily life. She also leads courses and non-residential workshops exploring the relational practice of Insight Dialogue, as developed by Gregory Kramer and colleagues.
Yanai Postelnik
Yanai has practiced and studied Insight meditation and Dharma teachings in Asia and the West. He leads retreats in Europe, Israel, Australia, New Zealand and the USA. Originally from New Zealand, he lives in Devon, England, and is a member of the Gaia House Teacher Council. Yanai also served one year as a resident teacher for the staff at Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Mass. USA. He has also led various courses combining meditation and silence with being in nature, which he finds to be a wonderful combination.
Sean Weaver
Sean Eiji Weaver Sensei is a teacher in the Diamond Sangha Zen lineage. He will be joining us for the Dharma Gathering in January 2019. He has been training in Zen since the 1980s and became a student in the Diamond Sangha in 1998. His teaching focuses on the intersection of Zen practice and social/environmental action. To this end he and his wife Jo Campbell (Practice Leader in the Diamond Sangha) developed a version of ‘stillness and action’ Zen training they call ‘Ekodo’ (ecological way). They have run retreats over the years in Wellington and then Golden Bay where they currently live. Sean and Jo have a strong sense of Dharma kinship with the Southern Insight Group.