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Senior Teachers

New York is home to many senior teachers in the Shambhala and Buddhist and Dharma Art traditions. We're pleased to share these local teacher profiles.

Acharya Eric Spiegel

Acharya Eric Spiegel has been teaching in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition for over 25 years. In addition to a 22 year career on Wall Street, Eric is known for his work with people with HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening illnesses. He is interested in exploring the nature of mind and meditation, not separate from the hard complexities of “real life”: work, relationships, health, aging.

Shastri Ethan Nichtern

Shastri Ethan Nichtern is a lifelong Shambhalian, and the founding director of The Interdependence Project, an NYC based nonproft dedicated to Buddhist-inspired meditation and psychology, integral activism, mindful arts, and meaningful media. He is also author of the acclaimed book One City: A Declaration of Interdependence (Wisdom Pubs). His writing has been featured on Huffington Post, Beliefnet, Tricycle Magazine, BuddhaDharma magazine, Reality Sandwich, and other online publications. Ethan has been teaching meditation and Buddhism in the Shambhala tradition since 2002. He is currently on the part-time faculty at Eugene Lang College at New School University and lectures regularly at Brown, Wesleyan, and New York Universities.

Sangyum Agness Au
Agness Au's is a Sangyum, a lifelong designation as a personal representative of the Druk Sakyong. Her Sangyum name is Drukmo Serri, Dragon Lady Gold Mountain. She is a senior Shambhala Training and Warrior Assembly director, former NYC Shambhala Training resident director, the current Chair of the Shambhala Commission on the Status of Women and Feminine Principle and member of the Sakyong's Council, the Board of Directors for Shambhala International. In recent years, Agness has developed a curriculum on the inseparable union of the feminine and masculine principles and teaches workshops internationally. She is a Somu (First rank) instructor in the Sogetsu School of Ikebana and has taught and demonstrated for over 20 years. Agness is retired from a 25-year career in the fashion industry as a design director, cataloger and business owner. Her businesses were recognized in the industry for market leading innovation and excellence in the practice of Total Quality Management. Agness lives in Greenwich Village with husband Dan Naistadt and is the mother of two teenaged sons.

John Baker

John grew up in Summit, New Jersey, attended the Pingry School, Yale, and the University of Chicago, where he majored and did graduate work in Chinese language, literature, and culture.

In 1970 John moved to Boulder, Colorado with Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche,  with whom he co-founded and served as the first director of the Karma Dzong Buddhist Center, and co-founded the Naropa Institute, serving as its first CEO. John taught at Naropa, lecturing on Buddhist psychology and meditation practice and Asian history, philosophy, and religion. John co-edited Trungpa Rinpoche's Cutting through Spiritual Materialism and The Myth of Freedom and has written and published articles on Buddhist psychology and meditation.

In 1977 John founded a business providing computer and marketing services to travel agencies in the U.S. and abroad, building the business for 23 years until he sold it and retired in 2000. During the 1990s John also served for seven years as a board member, treasurer and president of the Boulder County Mental Health Center, delivering mental health services to the chronically mentally ill. He is currently on the boards of Naropa University, the Westchester Buddhist Center, and Light of Berotsana Translation Group.

John led Buddhist/therapy groups in the Modern Psychoanalytic tradition for more than 15 years.  Today John loves working as an executive, life, and spiritual coach, helping people to live passionately fulfilling and successful lives, in tune with their most deeply held values.  John is married to Natalie Nance Baker, with whom he moved to New York in 2000. He has a daughter 36, a granddaughter 8, and a daughter 6.

John has led and taught many multi-month courses on Buddhism, month-long meditation programs, weekend programs, has lectured extensively, and he teaches regularly at the Weekly Dharma Gatherings, Tuesday evenings at 7 pm.

Robert Chender
Robert Chender became a student of the Vidyadhara Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche while in college. He majored in East Asian Studies at Vassar and also attended Harvard, where he wrote his senior thesis on the history of Buddhism in China; he also has a degree from the NYU School of Law. He has been a meditation instructor, teacher, and Shambhala Training director for more than twenty-five years. He has served on the Shambhala Center Board of Directors since its inception, and was chairman of the Board from 2000 until 2005. He and his wife Amy have two sons in college and live in Westchester County. Robert is a lawyer.

Derek Kolleeny
Derek was began the practice and study of Buddhism in 1976 and became a student of Trungpa Rinpoche. After graduating from high school in 1977, he attended his first Naropa Institute summer session.  He earned a B.A. from Harvard College, where he studied Buddhism, including Tibetan and Sanskrit languages.  Derek was the assistant coordinator of the six-month US tour of HH the XVIth Gyalwa Karmapa in 1980. He attended Vajradhatu Seminary and Kalapa Assembly in 1981 at Lake Louise, in Alberta, Canada. In 1982, he joined the Nalanda Translation Committee. He worked at Vajradhatu from 1982 through 1986, serving in the Department of External Affairs, working on hosting of visiting teachers, as Buddhist News Editor for the Vajradhatu Sun and on the Lumbini Project. In 1987 he moved to NYC and earned an MBA from Columbia Business School in 1989.  In 1999 he became a founding member of the Board of Directors of The Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center (www.tbrc.org), which is dedicated to preserving Tibetan Buddhist literature, creating a massive database to access this treasury and making it available worldwide through the Internet. In 2001, Derek joined the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York Board and became the Head of Practice and Study. He recently served as CFO for the Greyston Foundation for eight years, and is now VP Finance for the International Trachoma Initiative.

Hope Martin

Hope Martin has been studying the Alexander Technique since 1980, and teaching it since 1987. She maintains a lively practice, teaching private and group classes. Hope has taught at Sarah Lawrence College and internationally. She is a Senior Faculty member, training teachers at the American Center for the Alexander Technique. She also teaches at the NY Open Center and other venues, and has her own studio in New York City Hope Martin Studio. Hope is a meditation instructor and teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition. She has recently completed a two year training in Focusing.  Her particular passion is in assisting her students discover how easeful, upright posture is an expression of their human dignity, confidence, and innate wakefulness.

Joseph Mauricio

Joseph Mauricio, a senior teacher in the Shambhala Community, is a long time student of the Sakyong, and was privileged to serve as his chef and attendant for many years. Joseph is currently the Executive Director of the Shambhala Meditation Center of Baltimore. He is the founder of LIFEWORK a self-help counseling service, and serves as a lifecoach, meditation instructor, motivational speaker and public speaking coach.  He still travels to NYC weekly to teach at the NYC Center.

David Nichtern
A long-time teacher, Mr. Nichtern has been involved with Shambhala Buddhism and Shambhala Training since they were first offered by Tibetan meditation master Chögyam Trungpa in the 1970s. He has served as co-director of Karme-Choling Meditation Center in Vermont.
David is a songwriter, record producer, guitarist, and composer for film and television. Three-time Emmy award-winner and two-time Grammy-nominated composer, he is perhaps best known for his hit song, Midnight at the Oasis .
In 1998, David began working with his wife Cyndi Lee, the well-known yoga teacher and founder of the OM Yoga Center in New York City, to compose music to accompany her classes. He recently teamed up with master banshuri flute player Steve Gorn to create the band Drala has now established several recording labels of his own, including Dharma Moon , which produces music for the celebration of mind, body and spirit.

Jack Niland
Jack’s art life started at Cooper Union where he became a hippie. In the summer of 1970 he met Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Dharma Art instantly became his path. Jack worked on designs for many of the visual elements of Shambhala, including the banners hanging in our Centers today. In the early years of the Naropa Institute Jack taught Visual Dharma, and then applied the Dharma Art principles to the commercial world of high fashion. Currently he is working with Three Kayas to radiate these teachings throughout the world.

Elizabeth Reid
Elizabeth Reid is a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition.  She's a Director in the Way of Shambhala and Sacred Path weekend programs, having also devoted two years as a core member on the teaching team of the Weekly Dharma Gathering. With a background in theater and dance and an ongoing relationship with photography, she is endlessly intrigued by the interplay between meditation and the arts. For the last several years she has led contemplative photography workshops, which continue to reveal the power and inspiration of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s Dharma Art teachings.  She has a private practice in NYC as an Alexander Technique Teacher.

Lodro Rinzler

Lodro Rinzler is a practitioner and teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage. Over the last decade he has taught numerous workshops at meditation centers and college campuses throughout the United States. He currently serves as the Head of Development for Shambhala internationally and previously held the position of the Executive Director of the Boston Shambhala Center. Lodro's book, The Buddha Walks into a Bar: A Guide to Life for a New Generation, will be released by Shambhala Publications in early 2012. His Buddhist advice column, What Would Sid Do, appears in the Huffington Post each month.

Jeff Rubin
Jeff Rubin became a student of the Venerable Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche in 1973 and has been an authorized meditation instructor, dharma teacher and director of Shambhala Buddhist programs for over 30 years.  Prior to his retirement for health reasons, Jeff was managing partner of The Usability Group, a consulting firm whose mission was to make technology products and services more useful, efficient, and appealing to ordinary humans.  Jeff and his wife Halice reside in Matawan, NJ, and have three delightful children.

John Sennhauser

John Sennhauser is an attorney whose involvement with Shambhala began in the 1970s when he moved to Boulder, Colorado to study theater and dance at Naropa University. There he met Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and became his student. He is currently the chairman of the Shambhala Trust and continues to perform from time to time.

Irene Woodard

Irene Woodard has been a student of the Shambhala Buddhist teachings
for 28 years. She held the post of Warrior of the Center for the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York, and was the Resident Director of Shambhala Training for 5 years. In her life outside the center, she is a florist and the mother of two teenagers.

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Shambhala Meditation Center Of New York
118 West 22nd Street, 6th Floor, New York,  NY 10011
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