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About Our Teachers
Kirtan Coan, MA, LPC, CAGS is an artist, educator and practicing psychotherapist. Kirtan is a Community Dharma Leader from the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California and has been guiding the Forest Brook Sangha of Winston-Salem for over 5 years. She also teaches taiqi and gigong at the North Carolina School of the Arts and yoga at Arts of Yoga Studio in Winston-Salem. Kirtan aspires to touch our creative potential for intimacy, insight, dialogue and communal awakening.
Bob & Carol Colacurcio are long time Nyingma Tibetan Buddhist practitioners under the guidance of His Holiness Pema Norbu (Penor) Rinpoche, Supreme Head of the tradition. Bob first started meditating as a Jesuit monk & has a PhD in philosophy. Carol is also a "sound practitioner" & classical musician. She has worked for several years sharing sacred/indigenous sounds & music for treating physical, mental, & emotional imbalances.
Carol Colacurcio is a classically trained musician, skilled in the use of cross-cultural music and sound healing as well as a long time Nyingma Tibetan Buddhist practitioner. She lives in Front Royal, VA where she sees clients for music and healing work and is an expert in Music in Hospice. She has taught at local community colleges and has produced her own original music including two CDs - Sound Accord and Tibetan Singing Bowls.
Larissa Kitenko is the founder of the Easton Meditation Group and is a longtime practitioner of insight meditation. She has studied and practiced Buddhism in the Theravadan tradition. She is currently participating in a two year Dharma Study program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California and continues to work under the guidance of one of the members of its Teachers Council. She is also in teacher training with Tara Brach, founding teacher of Insight Meditation Community of Washington, DC.
Erik Knud-Hansen has practiced and taught deep silent retreats since 1972. He has experience and knowledge of a broad range of Buddhist traditions, as well as in Taoism and Advaita Vedanta. He currently lives in Hawaii.
Anne Briggs is one of the founders of the Insight Meditation Community of Chestertown, MD (IMC-Chestertown) which was organized in Spring 2001. Anne has been practicing vipassana meditation for 10 years and has studied and practiced mainly with teachers associated with the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA and the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, CA. In January 2008, she completed the Community Dharma Leader training program sponsored by Spirit Rock and currently serves as the Guiding Teacher at Chestertown.
Many of our teachers are from the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, DC [IMC-W]. We are particularly grateful to Dave Schoff and Jon Waterman of the IMC-W whose guidance and teaching were so helpful to our developing these programs. Among the IMC-W teachers who have come to Lewes are:
Jon Waterman began practicing yoga and meditation while teaching the martial arts in the early seventies, with a concentration, since 1994, on Buddhist insight meditation. His workshops and retreats focus on strengthening continuity of present moment awareness by combining mindful movement, insight dialogue and meditation techniques. Jon has a personal coaching practice and is a founding partner of Mind Body Health Associates, a group dedicated to bringing applied mindfulness, via Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction programs, to hospitals, universities and the workplace. He has been leading Stress Management programs within the Maryland Department of Corrections since 2000.
Jonathan Foust is president emeritus and a senior teacher at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. He started a consistent meditation practice at the age of 15 and has studied numerous disciplines from both the Yogic and Buddhist traditions. Jonathan has been leading meditation retreats for over 20 years and he is on the Teacher's Council of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, DC [IMC-W].
Luisa Montero-Diaz has been practicing vipassana meditation for over 12 years and teaching for 9 years. She completed the three-year Community Dharma Leadership program sponsored by the Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Luisa currently teaches a weekly meditation class in Takoma Park, Maryland, and leads day-long and weekend retreats in the Washington area. Prior to her exploration of Buddhist meditation, she was involved in Gurdjieff's Fourth Way spiritual study groups for four years.