Please find a list of our journey leaders below including teachers we have co-led with
Shantum Seth
Shantum Seth received the ‘lamp transmission’ from Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh ordaining him as a Dharmacharya (Teacher of the Dharma) in 2001 and he has been teaching in India and across the world. He has also been leading pilgrimages ‘In the Footsteps of the Buddha' and other multi-faith and transformative journeys since 1988. He is considered the foremost guide to the sites associated with the Buddha and is a profound cultural interpreter.
He is actively involved in social, environmental and educational programmes including work on cultivating mindfulness in society, with educators, the Central Reserve Police Force, the corporate sector amongst others. This is pioneered by the non-profit trust, Ahimsa www.ahimsatrust.org of which he is one of the Founders.
He has been a Senior Advisor to the World Bank and advised the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. He worked in the corporate sector and later in social advocacy and development, fifteen years of which were with the United Nations Development Programme, managing programmes on Volunteer Promotion and Artisan Development across 16 countries, as also initiating the Endogenous Tourism programme in India.
He has contributed to a number of books including 'Walking with the Buddha', 'Planting Seeds… Sharing Mindfulness with Children', and 'Volunteers Against Conflict'. He has also been a consultant on films including 'Life of the Buddha' by BBC/Discovery, and 'The Story of India' made by BBC/PBS. He and his work have been featured in The New York Times, Newsweek, and National Geographic, besides many other publications in India.
He has spoken on Tedx and had a weekly programme on Zee TV in India, where he offered teachings on Buddhism and Meditation in Everyday Life. He has led mindful journeys and been a guest speaker for many institutions including the Young Presidents’ Organisation, Phillips Exeter Academy, Rietberg Museum, the United Nations Development Programme executive board, the Confederation of Indian Industries, and a number of other educational institutions, corporations and museums East and West. He has also led private sessions and tours for individuals such as Drew Barrymore and Sting.
Shantum Seth comes from a well-known family, studied at The Doon School and St Stephen’s College in India and then graduated in Development Studies with his thesis in Gandhian Economics from the University of East Anglia, while also graduating in Footwear Technology and Management in Leicester, England.
His commitment to a cross-cultural understanding, with a mission of ‘Peace in Oneself, Peace in the World’ has led him to travel to more than 65 countries and nearly every state of India. Having lived in England, the USA and France (in a monastery) for over 14 years, he is now living with his wife, Gitanjali and daughters in Dehradun, in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas. |
"Dharma Yatra (Pilgrimage) is very important for Buddhists. When we visit these sacred sites, we are reminded of the Master, Lord Buddha. It develops in us a strong sense of compassion. Ideally, one should be a better person when one returns, otherwise it is not useful, a waste of money and time."
- HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA (In an exclusive interview given for the book "Walking with the Buddha', co-authored by Shantum Seth). |
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The Late Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh
The Late Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh (October 11, 1926 – January 22, 2022) was a global spiritual leader, poet and peace activist, revered around the world for his pioneering teachings on mindfulness, global ethics and peace.
Ordained as a monk at the age of 16 in Vietnam, Thich Nhat Hanh soon envisioned a kind of engaged Buddhism that could respond directly to the needs of society. He was a prominent teacher and social activist in his home country before finding himself exiled for calling for peace.
In the West he played a key role in introducing mindfulness and created mindful communities (sanghas) around the world. His teachings have impacted politicians, business leaders, activists, teachers and countless others. |
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Sister Chan Khong
Sister Chan Khong is the first fully-ordained monastic disciple of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, and the director of his humanitarian projects since the 1960’s. She was ordained on Vulture Peak in India in 1988, during the first pilgrimage organised by Buddhapath.
Born in 1938 in Ben Tre in Southern Vietnam, Sister Chan Khong began social work in the city slums as a teenager. After meeting Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in 1959, she helped him set up the School of Youth for Social Service, training thousands of young social workers to bring aid to remote war-devastated villages.
She organised the Buddhist Peace Delegation at the Paris Peace Talks in 1969, and in the 1970’s assisted Thich Nhat Hanh on his world tours calling for peace, and was instrumental in directing emergency humanitarian efforts to rescue Vietnamese Boat People from the high seas, as well as leading sponsorship programs for over 14,000 orphans in Vietnam.
Since the 1980’s Sister Chan Khong has helped Thich Nhat Hanh establish Plum Village Monastery in south-west France, and is today the Elder nun of the International Plum Village Sangha. |
Robert A.F. Thurman
Prof. Robert Thurman held the Je Tsongkhapa Chair of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University and Time Magazine had named him as one of the 25 most influential Americans. He is the President of Tibet House U.S. and is an American Buddhist author and academic He has done a number of translations including the Vimalakirti Sutra and The Tibetan Book of the Dead from Tibetan into English. He has also written a number of books including, Inner Revolution, Circling the Sacred Mountain, The Jewel Tree of Tibet, Life and Teachings of Tsongkhapa and Why the Dalai Lama Matters.
He is the recipient of India's highly prestigious award Padma Shri 2020 for his work in the field of literature and education.
He is married to Nena who is the Managing Director of Menla Mountain Retreat and often comes on the journeys. They have 4 children including the actress Uma Thurman.
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Stephen Batchelor
Stephen Batchelor was born in Scotland and educated in Buddhist monasteries in India, Switzerland and Korea. In 1972, at the age of nineteen, he settled in Dharamsala, and in 1974 he was ordained as a Buddhist monk in the Tibetan tradition and later traveled to Korea where he practiced as a Zen monk. Batchelor disrobed in 1985, when he moved to Devon, England to live and teach at the Sharpham Community and Gaia House. Stephen Batchelor has synthesized a distinctively Western Teaching style of Secular Buddhism, drawing from multiple Buddhist traditions. He is co-founder of Bodhi College. He currently lives in south-west France, with his wife, Martine.
His books include: The Awakening of the West: The Encounter of Buddhism and Western Culture, Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening, Verses from the Center: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime, Living with the Devil: A Meditation on Good and Evil, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist and The Art of Solitude. |
Martine Batchelor
Martine Batchelor was a Buddhist nun in Korea for ten years. She studied Son Buddhism under the guidance of the late Master Kusan. She translated his book ‘The Way of Korean Zen’. Following Master Kusan’s death she returned her nun’s vows and left Korea to come back to live in Europe where she also studied insight meditation. She lives in France with Stephen, her husband and her elderly mother.
She is the author of different books showing her interest in various subjects from Buddhism and ethics “The Path of Compassion” to Buddhism and Women “Women in Korean Zen”. At the moment she is focusing on meditation and compassion in daily life as in “Let go: A Buddhist Guide to Breaking Free of Habits”. Her latest book is The Spirit of the Buddha’. |
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Andrew Olendzki
Andrew Olendzki, Ph.D., is a Buddhist Scholar and Teacher who was trained in Buddhist Studies at Lancaster University in England, as well as at Harvard and the University of Sri Lanka. He is currently the Director of the Mindfulness Studies program at Lesley University in Cambridge in the US. He was the first Executive Director of the Insight Meditation Society and helped establish and develop the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.
He has written, Untangling Self: A Buddhist investigation of who we really are and Unlimiting Mind: The radically experiential psychology of Buddhism. |
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Fred Eppsteiner
Fred Eppsteiner, the Founder and teacher of The Florida Community of Mindfulness, is a Dharma teacher in the lineage of Thich Nhat Hanh. He has been a student of Buddhism and a practitioner of meditation for over fifty years and has devoted himself to teaching the Dharma since 1996. Although Fred has practiced primarily in the Zen and Tibetan Buddhist lineages, he bases his teachings on the full breadth of Buddhist philosophical, psychological and meditative traditions. |
Roshi Joan Halifax
Roshi Joan Halifax, Ph.D., is a Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and pioneer in the field of end-of-life care. She founded the Ojai Foundation in 1979 and is the Founder, Abbot, and Head Teacher of Upaya Institute and Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She received her Ph.D. in medical anthropology in 1973 and has lectured on the subject of death and dying at many academic institutions and medical centers around the world. She received a National Science Foundation Fellowship in Visual Anthropology, was an Honorary Research Fellow in Medical Ethnobotany at Harvard University, and was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Library of Congress. She is on the board of Directors of the Mind and Life Institute.
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Sally Armstrong
Sally Armstrong began practicing Vipassana Meditation in India in 1981 and started teaching in 1996. She was a founding member of the Sharpham meditation community in the UK. She moved to California in 1988 and is a member of Spirit Rock Teachers Council. She developed and led Spirit Rock’s Dedicated Practitioners Program for many years, and also created the Advanced Practitioner Program. She has a keen interest in supporting students who want to deepen their practice and understanding, and regularly teaches the long retreats at Spirit Rock and Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts, USA.
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Tho and Lisi Ha Vinh
Lisi and Ha Vinh Tho, Ph.D. are Dharma Teachers ordained by Thich Nhat Hanh. They are Founders of the Eurasia Foundation, a humanitarian NGO developing educational programs for children and youth. Eurasia created the Peaceful Bamboo Family (Tinh Truc Gia) in Hue in 2009, a community for people with special needs.
Tho was the Program Director of the Gross National Happiness Center in Bhutan from 2012 to 2018. As the former Head of Training, Learning and Development at the International Committee of the Red Cross, he has trained humanitarian professionals working in war zones and emergency response in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe.
He is a Fellow of the Mind and Life Institute/USA, and a member of the Presencing Institute/USA). He wrote the Happy Schools in Vietnam Curriculum, an innovative educational program introducing Mindfulness, Social and Emotional Learning and Care for the Planet in the Vietnamese education system. |
Jack Duffy
Jack Duffy was given permission to teach by Robert Aitken Roshi in January 1992 and was given independent teaching status and the title of Roshi in the formal Transmission Ceremony 5 years later. Jack has been a student of Aitken Roshi since 1981 and has studied with other teachers, including Joan Rieck and Thich Nhat Hanh. He brings his roles of spouse of Eileen Kiera, father, and psychotherapist, as well as years of endangered species work and wilderness wanderings, to his teaching. |
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Eileen Kiera
Eileen Kiera is an ecologist by training and a vegetable gardener by passion, but the practice and support of the Dharma has been her primary focus for the past 24 years. She's a student of Thich Nhat Hanh and Robert Aitken, Roshi. Thich Nhat Hahn ordained her as a Dharma Teacher in 1990, and since then she's led retreats in many places in the U.S., Europe and Australia. Her primary commitment, however, is to support the maturing of Dharma practice near her home in the Pacific Northwest. She lives with her husband, Jack Duffy and daughter in the mountains east of Bellingham at Wild Rose Farm, the rural practice center of Mountain Lamp Community. |
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Shmuel Thaler
2016 Santa Cruz County Artist of the Year, Shmuel Thaler has been a staff photographer at the Santa Cruz Sentinel since 1987. His photographs have been published in every leading newspaper in the United States as well as in Time and Newsweek, and viewed on the CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News. He has been honored three times with awards in the prestigious National Press Photographers Association Best of Photojournalism contest. Shmuel has also co-authored 5 children’s books and his photographs illustrate numerous books including his collaboration with George Levenson on ‘Bread Comes to Life’ and the classic ‘Pumpkin Circle’, which has more than 100,000 copies in print and is held by every major library system in the country.
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Gitanjali Varma Seth
Gitanjali Varma Seth, after finishing her schooling at The Welham Girls school, graduated from the Lady Sriram College in Delhi in Psychology. After getting her LLB at the Faculty of Law in Delhi University she practised in a law firm and then went on to complete her Masters in Law at the University of Virginia in the US.
On her return to India, due to her interest in social justice she joined the United Nations to assist in managing a Programme for Artisan Development in South Asia. During that period she worked closely with Anna Hazare (a modern-day Gandhi) on his 300 village programme. Thereafter she helped set up an international network of marginalized groups in 16 countries again under the auspices of the UN in the Inter-regional Volunteer Programme for Artisan Support. She won the Atsuhito Nakata award for volunteering, now known as the United Nations Volunteers Ambassador award. She married Shantum Seth in 1996 and they have two children. They live in Dehradun, in the Himalayan foothills of India.
She is an ordained member of the Order of Inter-being, set up by Thich Nhat Hnah and is the Managing Trustee of Ahimsa Trust, which works in the field of education, culture and social development.
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Ajeer Vidya
Ajeer Vidya has been a senior member of the elite Indian Administrative Services and holds an M.Phil. degree in International Economic Relations from the International Institute of Public Administration in Paris. He is from the Buddhist region of Himachal Pradesh, though a large part of his career was spent in the eastern state of Tripura. He took early retirement from the Indian Government to dedicate himself to studying and sharing the Dharma in India, and now also runs an Information Technology business. Ajeer is an ordained member of the Order of Inter-being and facilitates one of the Thich Nhat Hanh's sanghas in Gurgaon/ Delhi. He is also on the Executive Board of Dzongsar Kyenste Rinpoche's Siddhartha's Intent Institute. Ajeer, a seasoned meditator and teacher, blends the Zen and Tibetan traditions of Buddhism effortlessly.
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Bina Aranha
Bina Aranha graduated with Commerce honours from Delhi University. She is deeply involved with community work and the Catholic Church. She is an editor of the local residents' newsletter Samvada, and now helps edit over 30 such newsletters in Delhi/Noida. She is the Vice President of Buddhapath and has been with the organization since 1998. She enjoys interacting with people from different countries and backgrounds, sharing with them the unique character of Delhi and India. Her husband is President of an IT company in India and they have three grown up children. |
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The Late Bernie Glassman
The Late Bernie Glassman (January 18, 1939 – November 4, 2018) was an American Zen Buddhist Roshi and founder of the Zen Peacemakers (previously the Zen Community of New York), an organization established in 1980. In 1996, he co-founded the Zen Peacemaker Order with his late wife Sandra Jishu Holmes. Glassman was a Dharma successor of the late Taizan Maezumi-Roshi, and gave Inka and Dharma transmission to several people. Glassman was known as a pioneer of social enterprise, socially engaged Buddhism and "Bearing Witness Retreats" at Auschwitz and on the streets.
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Monastics of Plum Village, France |
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Teachers of Groton School, USA |
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Teachers of Phillips Exeter Academy, USA |
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