Our Guest Teachers

IMCB Guest Teachers

Judi Cohen

Judi Cohen is the founder of Warrior One. She leads The Wake Up Call, Warrior One’s live online mindfulness gathering for legal professionals; the teaching cohort of Warrior One’s Mindfulness in Law Teacher Training, a unique teacher training led by and developed for lawyers offering mindfulness to the profession; and Warrior One’s Essential Mindfulness for Lawyers online training. She is a frequent speaker and trainer on the topics of mindfulness and competence, ethics, and elimination of bias in the legal profession, at law firms, public interest organizations, and bar associations.

JD Doyle

JD Doyle (they,them) offers Buddhist meditation retreats and classes that focus on radical inclusivity and deepening our relationship to the natural world. Their training includes: Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s retreat teacher training, Community Dharma Leader training and the Dedicated Practitioner program, as well as the Dharmapala Training with Sacred Mountain Sangha. They co-founded the East Bay Meditation Center’s LGBTQIA+ (Alphabet) Sangha over 20 years ago. They’ve practiced Buddhism since 1995 in the U.S., Thailand, and Burma. Previously, they worked as a public school teacher for 25 years. They are committed to celebrating the diversity of our human sangha, addressing the impact of racism on our communities, expanding concepts of gender, and living in ways that honor the sacredness of the Earth.  For more info: www.heartmindteaching.com

Della Duncan

Della is a Renegade Economist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is an Atlantic Fellow of Social and Economic Equity at the International Inequalities Institute at LSE, a Right Livelihood Coach, former student and Faculty member of the MA Economics for Transition program at Schumacher College, and an Alternative Economics Teacher and Consultant.

Kevin Griffith

Kevin Griffin is a Buddhist teacher and author of several books, including One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps, and his latest Buddhism & the Twelve Steps DAILY REFLECTIONS. A longtime Buddhist practitioner and 12 Step participant, he is a leader in the mindful recovery movement and one of the founders of the Buddhist Recovery Network. Kevin is a husband, father and musician. His album “Laughing Buddha” is a collection of rock and world beat tunes with Buddhist themes.

Jean Leonard

Judi Cohen is the founder of Warrior One. She leads The Wake Up Call, Warrior One’s live online mindfulness gathering for legal professionals; the teaching cohort of Warrior One’s Mindfulness in Law Teacher Training, a unique teacher training led by and developed for lawyers offering mindfulness to the profession; and Warrior One’s Essential Mindfulness for Lawyers online training. She is a frequent speaker and trainer on the topics of mindfulness and competence, ethics, and elimination of bias in the legal profession, at law firms, public interest organizations, and bar associations.

Alexa Redner

Alexa Redner has been practicing meditation since 2003. She holds a BA in Visual Arts and MA in Creation Spirituality from Naropa University. Alexa has been an educator in many realms over the last twenty years, dancing between the worlds of being a Waldorf Kindergarten teacher, program teacher for Mindful Schools, and Eating Disorders/Body Positive Educator at Beyond Hunger. Alexa is currently a mentor for Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach’s Mindfulness Meditation Certification Program and teaches for Cloud Sangha, leading weekly community discussion groups, meditations, immersion sanghas, and individual mentoring sessions.

Betsy Rose

Betsy Rose is a singer and songwriter who for many years has been a voice within the progressive and spiritual movements of our times. Contemporary spiritual leaders such as peacemaker and poet Thich Nhat Hanh, Matthew Fox, and Joanna Macy have included her music in their work. Deeply influenced by the engaged Buddhism of Thich Nhat Hanh, Betsy’s teachings and life integrate social activism, music, and Dharma. She has sung and taught widely throughout the world at festivals, ecological conferences, grassroots women’s organizations, and spiritual gatherings.

For twenty years she was a teacher in the Spirit Rock Meditation Center Family Program, offering adults and children accessible Dharma teachings through songs, skits, and ceremonies.

Betsy Rose is a co-creator of Assaya Sangha, helping to bring women’s lives, stories and voices to the Buddhist tradition.

You can learn more about Betsy’s work at www.betsyrosemusic.org, and join her mailing list at https://www.betsyrosemusic.org/contact/

Ramona Lisa Smith-Ortiz

Ramona Lisa Ortiz-Smith, MBA, has been practicing meditation for over 25 years and studying the Dharma in the Theravada tradition for more than 15 years. Ramona Lisa considers herself a dedicated lay practitioner of the Dharma and has spent the last four years undertaking contemporary vows and living as a lay renunciate householder. She enjoys scholarly programs and has completed East Bay Meditation Center’s Commit to Dharma Program (C2D3) and Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s (SRMC) Dedicated Practitioners Program (DPP6). Her teacher training includes certification through the Mindfulness Training Institute and completion of East Bay Meditation Center’s two-year Spiritual Teacher and Leadership training. As a member of the inaugural cohort of the 2023 Dharma Relief 2 Fellowship program, Ramona Lisa looks forward to sharing the Dharma with diverse communities from her perspective as an indigenous Af’Rican Caddo and Taino+ being. Ramona is a certified Indigenous Focusing Oriented Therapy (IFOT) Practitioner and is inspired to include earth based indigenous practices in her offerings as a meditation and Dharma teacher. Ramona Lisa is nourished and sustained by long, silent retreat practice. She is a Free Spirit who creatively weaves together real life experiences into her Dharma interpretation and teachings, using authenticity, kindness, humor, music and joy!

Oren Jay Sofer

Oren Jay Sofer teaches meditation, mindfulness and nonviolent communication internationally. He holds a degree in Comparative Religion and is the author of the best-selling books Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication, and Your Heart Was Made For This: Contemplative Practices to Meet a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love

Amma Thanasanti

Amma Thanasanti is interested in wholeness alongside awakening. She supports you to grow up through developmental stages, clean up trauma and attachment wounding, wake up to your essential nature, and show up fully to have authentic connections with others. She has been teaching families for 35 years and intensive meditation retreats for 27 years. She was a Buddhist nun for 26 years, including 20 years in the Ajahn Chah Forest Tradition. 

Decades of living in monastic communities showed her several ways that ending suffering required more than what was available from Insight meditation practices and ethical guidelines, leading to her passion for trauma-informed mentoring and creating the Integrated Meditation Program. She returned to civilian life in 2017. 

Amma’s North Star is the truth where love, pervasive awareness, and the power of the land teach and support her every day.