Meet the Dedicated Practitioners Program Teachers

 

We asked the Dedicated Practitioners Program teaching team for reflections on their own Dharma path, and here’s some of what they said.

Were you raised Buddhist? If not, what drew you into Buddhist practices and wisdom?

Tempel Smith

My parents were Marxist and neuroscience university professors. I think only Buddhism could have reconciled these two different world views! While they are both very intelligent, as were their friends and colleagues, they were easily angered when I was growing up and didn’t know any deep or stable peace. My young life greatly changed when I started spending two months each summer canoe trekking in the northern Canada wilderness. For twelve summers up north I consistently dropped into a life of humble, quiet confidence: honest and no pretension. Not only did this happen to me, but it happened to all of us living simply in the wilderness. The adults leading those expeditions were funny, happy, honest, and comfortable with quiet, and they taught me what they could. I was desperate to live as happy as I was in the woods, and I wanted it for the whole year. When I met my first Dharma teachers I felt this same internal peacefulness, honesty, humor, and wisdom. I didn’t understand much of the Dharma on my first silent retreat, yet the feeling after was what I was yearning for.

Bonnie Duran

My Buddhist history was written up recently in a Q&A I did for the Insight Meditation Society’s (IMS) “Way of the Buddha” series. You can see it here: Bonnie’s Dharma Story (IMS).

Kaira Jewel Lingo

I was raised Christian and actually had a very positive experience with it. I enjoyed attending church, even as a teen, and turning to the Bible at times for answers to the difficulties in my life. I first learned meditation in my Yoga practice as a teen and began to meditate in the Hindu yogic tradition more seriously in college. I was drawn to Buddhist practice because in my last year of college I felt that there was something missing from my education. Ram Dass gave a talk on my campus and said “You learn a lot of things here, but you don’t learn how to be happy.” That really resonated with me. I knew in spite of all the wonderful things I had learned, I still needed to learn to be happy and to take care of my suffering. So I set out to find a spiritual teacher and community where I could learn how to be at ease with myself, not just successful.

A friend told me about Plum Village and I decided to attend the summer retreat there in 1997. As soon as I saw Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh in the Dharma hall at age 23, I knew he was my teacher. I cancelled the rest of my four-month trip around Europe to continue practicing in the monastery, and at the end of that time had the wish to become a nun. I thought, “Why not do what is most important for me now?” I figured we never know how long we have to live, so I wanted to prioritize what I cared about most. I became a Buddhist nun at age 25, in the Plum Village community of Thích Nhất Hạnh, also known affectionately by his students as Thầy (“teacher” in Vietnamese).

Gullu Singh

No, I was raised Sikh. I had some understanding of meditation from a young age and used mantra-based meditation practices when I was under stress, but I really found a daily meditation practice when I graduated from law school and began to work as a lawyer. I had been fortunate to have done well in school and got a prestigious, highly-coveted job, but I was completely stressed out, miserable, and depressed. So I began to meditate daily. I found an audio cassette series of Jack Kornfield teaching mindfulness for beginners at the library and listened to it on repeat until the tape literally broke. It feels like practice rescued me at a time I really needed it.

John Martin

I was raised as a Unitarian and did not find Buddhist practice until I was in my forties. Like many, I was drawn to the practice by suffering. I came into practice with a lot of physical discomfort, and with a sense that despite the material comforts I enjoyed in life there had to be something more. As a gay man, I had also had lived through the death of many dear friends in the AIDS epidemic years and found this to be a mysterious calling toward silence.

With my first daylong retreat and first multiday retreats, I fell in love with the Dharma. I found a way to attend 6-7 weeks a year of retreats. The Buddha’s teachings on the Four Noble Truths and on this being a path of direct realization (rather than being about following edicts) deeply resonated with me.

What were a few turning points in your Dharma path where you felt it deepening? Are there any specific moments where you felt your heart become clearly alive with confidence in the Dharma?

Tempel Smith

I felt so deeply content for months after my first 9-day meditation retreat that I was hooked, yet my next few Goenka and IMS retreats were very painful and difficult. I got disillusioned with the Dharma path and decided to drop it. About a year after I left, lost and confused again, I picked up Jack Kornfield’s book, A Path With Heart. The tone of honesty, clarity, and compassion sparked me into wanting to try again, and this time I felt I much better heard the invitation into the heart of the practice.

About this same time I began giving my life over to direct environmental activism. The only truly inspiring activists were the elders connected to spirituality. It didn’t matter what their tradition was as long as it was fearlessly aimed towards love, honesty and service. When I engaged my activism after sitting long silent retreats I felt this possibility open within me, and this captured all of my heart’s intentions.

Bonnie Duran

My Dharma experience deepened quite a bit when I started practicing with my teacher, Joseph Goldstein in the late ‘90s. His ability to see so clearly where I was in my practice and his lucid and precise practice instructions were profoundly revelatory. I did have experiences practicing with him that erased all “doubt” in the Dharma path. Through him I was able to join the larger Vipassanā/Insight convert Buddhist Tradition in the West. I love it!! The Dedicated Practitioners Program is part of that path. Through my partner, I am also a member of the local Betsuin Buddhist Temple in Seattle, which is part of the Jodo Shinshu Buddhist Churches of America.

Kaira Jewel Lingo

The day I ordained as a nun was a very powerful experience of feeling confidence in the Dharma and being deeply inspired to do my best to live it as fully as I could. Another turning point was realizing after 15 years as a nun that my path was leading me out of the monastery. It was a difficult and painful journey that took four years of discerning but it led to greater confidence in my own inner wisdom about what my purpose is. I felt very supported and guided by events, circumstances, and the extended lay community to keep journeying out and making a new life for myself as a lay Dharma teacher and practitioner.

Being able to attend a number of three-month silent retreats in the Insight tradition at IMS had a huge impact on my practice and was very powerful in helping me work through the huge life choice I was encountering of whether or not to disrobe. It also awakened me to the rich and precious tradition of Theravāda teachers and teachings, and made me thirsty to delve deeper into the Insight tradition.

Gullu Singh

One moment shines out. It was my first retreat at Spirit Rock. I went largely on a whim, not really knowing what it was about, on the recommendation of an acquaintance. The retreat was “Awakening the Body” and I had the experience of hearing Philip Moffitt deliver the opening remarks and in that moment feeling like arriving into this new space was more like returning home. I knew then and there, without any doubt, that this was my path.

John Martin

I remember one key turning point after I had returned from a six week retreat right as I was completing DPP2. I felt a calling to devote myself fully to practice, feeling as if I needed to quit the work world. But it wasn’t in the cards given that I had a job I actually greatly valued and had a partner, who I’ve now been with for 27 years. So I decided to bring the practice fully into all aspects of my life—even to my job. Bringing wholesome intentions of mettā, compassion, and renunciation into my work life was transformative. Of course, my teachers had been encouraging this approach all along, but I had drawn an artificial line between retreat practice and my job.

When did you feel the powerful impact of belonging and participating in saṅgha?

Tempel Smith

Without saṅgha I would get lost again with confusion and insecurities, and I would get sloppy with my daily practices. When I even had one committed Dharma friend I felt more sane in their company and more clear in my path. When I tried to practice by myself I would always get confused, and my bad habits would take over again. My family and my non-Dharma friends would always make me doubt what I knew to be true, and in doubt I would fall back into unconsciousness. The default dominant culture would overwhelm me and my resolve. Seeing how lost, tired, and confused I would get without saṅgha, I knew I had to have as much Dharma community as I could access. For this I moved to San Francisco and started a living co-op in San Francisco for Buddhist activists and direct service providers. I cannot imagine I could have followed the Dharma path without community and good friends.

Bonnie Duran

The Buddha said that Holy Company is the WHOLE of the Holy Life. I take that very seriously. Saṅgha is deeply meaningful and important to me. I’ve always had either a people of color and allies saṅgha or now a “Crones” saṅgha meeting at my house in Seattle. Going online with our saṅgha during COVID has been difficult. As a teacher and academic, I’m on Zoom much of the day, and adding evening gatherings, even for saṅgha, has been difficult.

Kaira Jewel Lingo

The impact of the saṅgha was profound throughout my fifteen years as a nun as I genuinely experienced myself as a cell in the larger body of the community, as Thầy taught. In silent retreats in the Insight tradition I experienced a unique expression of respect, generosity, and spaciousness because we were all practicing to be present for each other in the silence. I felt closer to myself than I ever had before. In the Spirit Rock teacher training I experienced another kind of community that overlapped in new ways with a life-long commitment to social and racial justice, and manifested relational mindfulness in our friendships, collective study, working on projects together, and supporting each other through the ups and downs of our lives.

Gullu Singh

Feeling a sense of belonging has always been complicated for me as an American-born son of Indian immigrants. In India, I was perceived as the “American kid,” and growing up in Alabama, perceived as the “Indian kid.” At Spirit Rock for many years, there were retreats where I was the only or one of a small few people of color in a group of maybe 80 or 90. Of course I was aware of this, but it actually did not feel like such a big deal until it began to change. When more South Asians and Black folks started showing up, there was a kind of silent camaraderie that helped me relax and go deeper. Since becoming a teacher, it’s become a kind of running joke to me when retreatants thank me for being brown. So I’m very focused on trying to foster the sense that we all belong. Having a diverse DPP7 team is a good start in this regard.

John Martin

I found my first real saṅgha through DPP2. I finally met others who shared my love of the Dharma and had a dedication to the path of practice. Almost twenty years later, I still meet once a month with a couple of my Dharma buddies from DPP2. We’ve gotten to know each other’s practice so well, that we can rely on one another for support and feedback. These friendships support a sense of keeping the practice fully alive even in daily life.

What has been your experience of reading and reflecting on the actual Pāli suttas? How have you worked with a particular sutta to guide your practice?

Tempel Smith

Although all of my teachers could teach from the Pāli suttas, I never could get much out of them myself. They seemed to only make sense when a senior teacher would help me access their wisdom. When I practiced in Burma I felt strongly held by the teachings from the suttas, yet again I couldn’t directly make use of the suttas themselves. It wasn’t until DPP4 that I put in steady effort to merge study and practice with the suttas. I needed a program like DPP where I could read the suttas in an organized curriculum, be in months of dialogue with other committed students and teachers, repeatedly reflect upon them, ask questions, and actively contemplate them. If it had not been for DPP, the suttas would still be hard for me to work with directly.

Bonnie Duran

I LOVE the suttas! Reading the original teachings of the Buddha is very significant, meaningful, inspiring, heartwarming, and an emotionally rewarding practice for me. My favorite is Piya Tan’s Sutta Discovery Series of teachings and interpretations. I’m sure it’s related to my “academic” disposition and training as a Social Work/Public Health Professor and researcher. I’m into collective “wellbeing” and the Dharma is the most powerful path towards that end that I’ve ever seen. The suttas provide a very clear path in that direction.

For meditation of course, the Satipaṭṭhāna and Ānāpānasatisuttas are both significant for me. I view the suttas as the most advanced psychology, and also a significant contribution to present-day sociology. I love the Vipallāsa sutta, on distortions of perception, thought and view, as an excellent present-day description of structural discriminations and racism, etc. The Buddha was brilliant—sometimes I wondered if he was really from this planet! 😂🤣❤️

Kaira Jewel Lingo

Before I ordained I studied the Ānāpānasati and Satipaṭṭhāna suttas (in the books, Breathe, You Are Alive, and Transformation and Healing, respectively) in their Pāli and Mahāyāna versions, with commentary from Thích Nhất Hạnh. He offered these two suttas to all his students as the foundational texts we all needed to study intimately. Every morning and evening as a nun we chanted suttas from both Pāli and Mahāyāna canons. Also I have benefited from the Anumāna Sutta on measuring and reflecting, to help me to look honestly at my own practice and receive feedback from others with an open and balanced mind. 

Gullu Singh

My introduction to formal sutta study was as a participant in DPP5. I don’t think I could have navigated this without some structure. The suttas tend to be repetitive and I found them hard to read. Also they come in large collections so it was useful to have the teachers point out specific suttas. 

I have so many favorite suttas that I’ve worked with. The more I read them, the more I find that the themes come to mind in times of need. One of my favorites in the Vitakkasaṇṭhāna Sutta: The Removal of Distracting Thoughts where the Buddha outlines a practical 5-prong approach for developing concentration and inclining the mind to wholesome thoughts.

John Martin

Before entering into DPP2, I was not able to connect at all with the suttas, despite my interest. Through DPP2, I learned how to read the suttas and how to practice with them. I’ve found certain suttas that speak directly to my heart that continue to resonate with me after many years. They are a source of inspiration in my practice. Again and again, I’ve been surprised that deeper layers of understanding of these suttas continue to emerge.

What are your aspirations for teaching in the Dedicated Practitioner Program? What draws you into teaching this two year program?

Tempel Smith

It is the greatest honor I have known in the past ten years to teach a 2-year program such as DPP. Outside of DPP and other Dharma programs, we often have to be so adaptive in how we teach that we sometimes avoid the depths of the Buddha’s teachings. It’s quite an art to capture the heart of what is in the Pāli Canon and still make it accessible and useful for students who are just beginning their practice. DPP is such an honor—to talk more directly about the early teachings of the Buddha and have it be so useful, inspiring, and valued by the students in the room. There is also so much happiness in seeing students form bonds of deep community, and see their confidence grow in the Dharma path.

Bonnie Duran

I thoroughly enjoy new discoveries and insights though sutta reading and discussions. For me, it’s a very privileged position to be able to facilitate this very important part of the Eightfold Path. I know that knowledge and insight comes from multiple directions, and that is my approach to the DPP.

Kaira Jewel Lingo

I am interested in supporting participants in connecting deeply with the Buddha’s teachings and learning how to bring these more alive in our daily life. Also I am really nourished by building and being part of vibrant community, and I want to get to know you and grow a sense of shared purpose and collective aspiration. I am also drawn to DPP because of the opportunity to teach and practice alongside teachers I deeply respect and admire.

Gullu Singh

I got so much out of DPP5 as a participant that it feels like a great blessing to be part of its continuation. I love working with and being in community with sincere practitioners with some practice experience under their belt. It’s also a fantastic teacher saṅgha that I am proud to be a part of. Ultimately though, for me teaching is always really just a way to deepen and mature my own understanding of the teachings, and DPP is especially great for this due to its comprehensive approach.

John Martin

As a teacher, I especially value supporting practice groups oriented toward those who have a deep dedication to the practice. With my teaching in the DPP7 program, I’d like to share my deep faith in the Buddha’s teachings, support the sharing of the inspiring teachings of the Buddha, and support the building of a community of practitioners. My wish is that DPP7 saṅgha members realize the benefits of this program just as I did from my participation in DPP2.

Is there anything else you would like to share with those interested in attending DPP?

Bonnie Duran

The DPP is definitely a 2-year commitment to the Dharma through the Eightfold Path. We meet five times, and absolutely become community. The monthly homework and Dharma discussions are both rigorous and productive of insight. It is a meaningful and positive karmic commitment to the present and to the rest of your life.

Kaira Jewel Lingo

I love chanting the suttas. As a nun we chanted the suttas daily, mostly in English and Vietnamese, but also in French and German, and I have also really enjoyed learning the Pāli and English chants on silent retreats in the Vipassanā tradition. I look forward to chanting with you in DPP and the way chanting these texts penetrates us at a deeper level than just reading or studying them. When we chant the words take root in our consciousness and then at unexpected moments, this wisdom is suddenly available to us, often when we need it most.

Gullu Singh

It really is a great, and as far as I know, unique program. My experience prior to DPP was learning the teachings in a hodge-podge way based on retreats and sitting groups and DPP helped fill in a lot of the gaps that happen from this approach. And above all, being part of a saṅgha of people from all over that meets 5 times over 2 years is a really special experience. Some of my dearest continuing friendships began in DPP.

What are a few of the formative experiences of your childhood?

Bonnie Duran

As a mixed race Native American woman, I was one of a few children of color growing up in my Noe Valley, San Francisco neighborhood and in my local Catholic School. I experienced a fair amount of prejudice and my parents had discernable “historical trauma.”

Kaira Jewel Lingo

I was raised in an interracial family in a residential, ecumenical Christian community that did village and human development projects around the globe, working with the poor, practicing daily worship and simple living. Our main hub was in Chicago, in a repurposed eight-story insurance building where hundreds of people lived. I was raised communally from birth, though I shared a room with my parents and siblings. My days were spent in learning, singing, playing and discussion with the many other dozens of children my age, going first to infant school, then mini-school for toddlers, then pre-school in our building, all taught by the adults in our community, before entering public school in kindergarten.

As an adult I was told by a dear family friend who taught me in preschool that when I was 3, and it was another child’s birthday, I asked him “What is the most significant thing that happened to you in the last year, and what are you most looking forward to in the next year?” as this is the question everyone was asked on their birthday in my community!

Gullu Singh

When I was maybe 6 years old, my father took me to a Zen saṅgha. I ran around and basically wreaked havoc and nobody batted an eye. I sat on random laps during the meditation period and people would lightly embrace me. When the folks there spoke to me, it was palpably different from my interactions with most adults. They seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say, listened attentively, and didn’t talk down to me. Also there was constant laughter and good cheer. It later became a touchstone for the quality of being I wanted to inhabit.

 

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