Spirit Rock and the Dharma Institute warmly invite you to join us for our live Community Question & Response (Q&R) sessions. These calls are intended to support your practice as you go through your course, and between retreats and classes. They offer real-time guidance from Spirit Rock teachers, a chance to connect with a supportive community, and the flexibility of recorded sessions if you can’t join live.
These sessions are available by monthly subscription,* and you’re welcome to join any time, wherever you are in your course(s), including if you finished your course long ago. It’s a space to come together as practitioners, explore what’s alive in your practice and study, and connect with the Dharma Institute community.
* Subscription details coming soon! For now, you’re welcome to join the calls directly.
Live Sessions include:
- A short grounding meditation
- Space for practice questions and responses from the teachers
- Community sharing and building connections with Dharma friends
Blessing on your path—we look forward to seeing you in our next session!
About the Teachers
Sean Oakes, PhD, teaches the Dharma with a focus on the integration of meditation, study, and self-inquiry with trauma resolution and social justice. He has studied in Theravāda, Zen, and Vajrāyāna Buddhist lineages, including training as a monk in Burma, and was authorized to teach Insight Meditation by Jack Kornfield in 2010. He completed the Dedicated Practitioner (DPP1), Mindfulness Meditation and Yoga (MYMT2), and Community Dharma Leader (CDL5) trainings at Spirit Rock. In addition to mentor Jack Kornfield, Dr. Oakes’ primary Buddhist teachers include Sylvia Boorstein and Eugene Cash, Kitissaro and Ṭhānissara, Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu, Anam Thubten, and Sayadaw U Janaka, with whom he ordained as a bhikkhu for a Rains Retreat in Burma in 2002.
Sean studied Yoga with Alice Joanou, Rachel Shaw, Amanda Moran, and David Moreno, and taught mindfulness-based Yoga āsana and prāṇāyāma for 10 years. He studied and performed for many years in music, dance, and performance art, and trained in Somatic Experiencing (SE) and Organic Intelligence (OI) with Steven Hoskinson, integrating the complex systems approach from OI in a distinctively Buddhist approach to trauma resolution. Sean teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, East Bay Meditation Center, and online with Insight Timer, Yoga International, and other lovely organizations. He received his PhD in Performance Studies from UC Davis in 2016, writing on states of consciousness in Buddhist meditation and experimental dance, and lives in Northern California on ancestral Pomo territory with his family and beloved community.
Victoria Cary is a Dhamma teacher and leader who co-founded the San Francisco Black Indigenous People of Color Insight Sangha and continues to serve as one of its core teachers. She has been practicing and studying Insight meditation for nearly two decades, most recently finding inspiration in the Mahasi/U Pandita lineage with Venerable Sayalay Daw Bhaddamanika and Venerable Sayadaw U Vivekananda, and sitting 3-month silent retreats in Nepal and at Insight Meditation Society.
Victoria loves the Dhamma and is particularly drawn to supporting people in their practice through a focus on the integration of Dhamma into everyday life. As a queer, biracial black woman, Victoria’s approach to teaching seeks to investigate the complexity of our human experience while holding plenty of space for kindness. Her practice has also been informed by 3-years of volunteer work at Zen Hospice and a deep exploration of how developing a relationship with impermanence and death can actually point us to a profound sense of aliveness.
She completed Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leaders training program in 2016, and Teacher Training in 2020. Victoria is honored to currently serve as one of Spirit Rock’s Staff Dharma Teachers, and a member of the Teacher’s Council for the San Francisco Dharma Center project, in addition to teaching retreats and groups, and mentoring students.
About Spirit Rock & Insight Meditation
Spirit Rock is a spiritual training institution in the Insight Meditation tradition grounded in the Buddha’s teachings in the Pāli discourses. Our vision and mission is to bring people to a depth of realization of the Buddha’s path of liberation through direct experience and to provide practitioners with teachings to manifest wisdom and compassion in all aspects of their lives for the benefit of all beings. We welcome practitioners of all backgrounds and levels of experience to join communities of learning, support, and connection in our spiritual sanctuary and refuge.
This course is part of Spirit Rock’s new Dharma Institute, which offers in-depth study of the teachings and practices of the Buddha and the Insight Meditation lineage, along with professional trainings and continuing education.
Spirit Rock was founded in 1986 by Jack Kornfield, who, along with Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein, and Jacqueline Schwartz, founded Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, MA, in 1976. These centers, along with Gaia House (Devon, UK), are among the first centers teaching Insight Meditation (vipassanā) in the West. Read more about the founding of Spirit Rock and IMS in Jack Kornfield’s article “This Fantastic, Unfolding Experiment.”
Insight Meditation is based in Theravāda (“The Way of the Elders”) Buddhism, as practiced in Sri Lanka, Burma (Myanmar), and Thailand, though our teachers carry many different lineages within—and outside—Theravāda. Our primary practices are based in the Mahāsī lineage of Burmese vipassanā and the Thai Forest Saṅgha lineage of Ajahn Chah. Read more about our Buddhist Lineage and listen to talks from teachers about the roots of our practice.
About Instructor
