Retreat Teachers April 2021
Anushka Fernandopulle
Anushka has trained in Buddhist meditation for over 30 years, including 4 years of full time training in monasteries and retreat centers in the US, India & Sri Lanka. She was invited to teach in 1998 and joined the Teacher’s Council at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in 2011. Her teaching is informed by nature, creative arts, political engagement and modern urban life.
​
Anushka also works as an organizational consultant and leadership coach. She holds a BA from Harvard and an MBA from Yale focused on leadership and organizational behavior, as well as a certification in coaching from the Coaches Training Institute. She has served as a mayoral appointee to San Francisco’s commission on community development as well as many other nonprofit boards. She has been involved in movements for justice and civil rights throughout her life and continues to support these through her consulting and coaching work.
Anushka's writing on dharma and politics has been featured in Tricycle, Lion’s Roar, Turning Wheel, Inquiring Mind, and Huffington Post.
​
​
Howard Cohn
Howard is one of the founding teachers of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and has led the Mission Dharma sitting group in San Francisco for over 30 years. He has practiced meditation since 1972 and has led vipassana retreats since 1985. He is known by his students for his kindheartedness and warm sense of humor.
​
Howie has studied with Asian and western teachers of several traditions, including Theravada, Zen, Dzogchen and Advaita Vedanta, and has been strongly influenced by contact with the Indian master H.W.L. Poonja. He has done postgraduate work in East/West Psychology and has a private counseling practice.
​
Howie is the author of the book, Invitation to Meditation: How to Find Peace Wherever You Are; an accessible and deeply resonant teaching offered in a beginner friendly, jargon-less, format, that weaves the experience of meditation directly into the reading.
​
Genevieve Tregor
Genevieve is the founding teacher of Insight Meditation Scottsdale in the Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area in Arizona; as well as Solution Mindfulness, through which she offers Mindfulness training to a wider audience, including healthcare providers, in a secular context. She mentors individuals and provides classes, workshops and retreats with both Buddhist and secular approaches to practice. She was hand-selected by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach to serve on the faculty for their International Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program.
Genevieve has practiced Mindfulness under senior Western and Monastic Teachers in the Insight Tradition, and has undertaken multiple long-term dedicated practice periods totaling nearly 1.5 years in intensive, silent retreat conditions exploring the depths of Mindfulness.
She holds a M.S. in Kinesiology and has worked in public health, healthcare, health research and education, as well as in the field of complementary medicine. She is Trauma-Informed and trained in Peter Levine’s body-oriented Somatic Experiencing method of healing trauma.
Genevieve also serves on the faculty of South Mountain Community College.
InsightScottsdale.org
SolutionMindfulness.com
Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program
Pascal Auclair
​
Pascal has been immersed in Buddhist practice and study since 1997, sitting long retreats in Asia and America with revered monastics and lay teachers. He has been mentored by Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Massachusetts and Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California. Since 2010, he is one of the core teachers at IMS. Pascal has also been leading short and long retreats for more than a decade now at Spirit Rock.
He teaches all over North America and in Europe. He is a co-founder of True North Insight in Canada, and a Guiding Teacher at Terre d’Éveil, a leading meditation organization in Paris, France. Pascal also enjoys training social workers, psychologists and educators in the mindfulness program at the Université du Québec in Montreal.
​
"Pascal Auclair is a wonderful teacher. His depth of insight, classical training, and creative expression all combine in a wise and compassionate presence. I'm delighted that he is sharing his dharma understanding." - Joseph Goldstein
PUBLISHED BY THE TEACHERS
Howard Cohn
Invitation to Meditation: How to Find Peace Wherever You Are (2016)
​
Anushka Fernandopulle
​
Pascal Auclair
(Article) Facing Death Is a Device for Tenderizing Hearts Lion's Roar (2017)
​
Genevieve Tregor
(Article) The Difference Between Healing and Fixing in the Practice of Mindfulness Mindful.org (2018)