Teachers and Facilitators

for the Mindfulness|Meditation|Buddhism Program

Reverend Pamela Patton

Rev. Pamela is the Assistant Minister at All Souls NYC. She is responsible for spiritual care and the Mindfulness|Meditation|Buddhism program. She also manages the Education, Membership and Communications departments. She preaches occasionally on Sundays, she leads programs on meditation several times a week, and she hosts a variety of guest teachers related to spiritual care and Buddhism.

Pamela is both a Unitarian Universalist and a Buddhist, and founded the Mindfulness|Meditation|Buddhism program at All Souls. She has been involved with All Souls for 30 years. Her own spiritual practice is in the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, and her dharma home is Shantideva Center in Brooklyn.

Pamela holds a Masters of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary, and she has clinical chaplaincy experience at various NYC hospitals, The Jewish Theological Seminary, and the NY Zen Center for Contemplative Care. This is a second career for Pamela; her prior career was in the tech world where she worked at a Silicon Valley startup, Fortune 500 companies, and NYC nonprofits. Pamela holds an M.A. in Education and Computing from Teachers College and a B.S. in Mathematics from Tufts University.

Pamela’s sermons related to Buddhism, mindfulness and meditation

Harry Miller

Harry is a member of All Souls who has studied Buddhist meditation for 45 years and leads a drop-in Dharma study group in our Buddhism & Mindfulness program. Harry was a student of the renowned Zen teacher, Chan Master Sheng-yen, for 30 years. He is a docent at the Rubin Museum in Chelsea, where he also leads Dharma study groups. He teaches meditation and philosophy at the Chan Meditation Center in Queens, and edited the Chan Newsletter for 10 years. Harry was awarded an NEA grant for Chinese translation, and holds a BA in French and English literature from Sarah Lawrence and an MA in Chinese Literature from Columbia University.

Pilar Jennings

Pilar is a psychoanalyst in private practice with a focus on the clinical applications of Buddhist meditation. She has been working with patients and their families through the Harlem Family Institute since 2004. She is a Visiting Lecturer at Union Theological Seminary, a guest lecturer at Columbia University, and a faculty member of the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science. In our Buddhism & Mindfulness program, she has taught several short courses, including “Working with Difficult Emotions – A Buddhist and Psychotherapeutic Approach,” which explored a range of emotions from a spiritual and clinical perspective. More recently she taught “How To Be in Relationship.”

Her website is drpilarjennings.com

Jon Aaron

Jon Aaron’s Dharma home is New York Insight Meditation Center, where he teaches Buddhism and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction. He is also the co-guiding teacher of the Makom Havurah at the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan. His training has been mainly grounded in the Theravāda tradition, in addition to non-dual and Mahayana approaches. His teacher is Matthew Flickstein. More recently he has been training with Kittisaro and Thanissara. Jon also studied contemplative care at the Zen Center for Contemplative Care and completed the Integrated Study and Practice program at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. Jon Aaron has taught more than 100 cycles of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and is a Certified MBSR Teacher Trainer. As a Somatic Experience Practitioner®, he has a particular interest in somatic approaches and healing trauma. You can find Jon in weekly conversation with his friend Doug Smith over on the Diggin the Dharma podcast. JonAaron.net, Space2Meditate.com

Carolyn Jackson

Carolyn Jackson identifies as a Unitarian Universalist and a Buddhist in the Insight tradition. A member of All Souls since 1994, she has been part of its sangha since its inception and a Certified Mindfulness Meditation teacher since 2021. Professionally, she is a writer and editor and worked in politics, news, and non-fiction for young people. She was a co-author of the book All Souls at 200 and editor of the electronic All Souls Beacon.

Robert Lyster

Throughout his life, Bob has found the spiritual journey enormously fulfilling. Guided by his years of training in mysticism, he has actively participated in a number of the world’s major religions as well as engaged with countless spiritual philosophy and growth programs. A career Wall Streeter, Bob has retired to a peaceful country setting and has found the spiritual side of life even more fascinating, dynamic, and joyful. As a meditator for half a century, his participation in the Buddhism & Mindfulness program has brought a new expansiveness to his practice. Bob holds a BA in Economics from Amherst College and an MBA in Finance from Columbia.

Peggy Kampmeier

Peggy Kampmeier is a member of All Souls Church and has attended Pamela’s Buddhism and Mindfulness sessions since April of 2020. As a professional musician, Peggy is active as both a performer and an educator. For many years, she has included meditation as part of her performance practice. Peggy lives in Manhattan and enjoys walking with friends, reading about Polar exploration, spending time with family, and generally remaining curious about almost everything

Wiley Saichek

An independent book publicist by profession, Wiley Saichek has been a member of All Souls NYC since 2006 and has been studying Buddhism at All Souls and Shantideva Center since 2018. He currently lives in Brooklyn and enjoys reading, dining out, music, and TV dramas. In addition to leading a Community Meditation session, he currently advises on publicity and helps manage the Buddhism & Mindfulness social media channels.

Here, on Facebook.

And here on Instagram.

Laura Brown-Lavoie

Laura is the Program Coordinator for the Mindfulness, Meditation, and Buddhism program at All Souls. She is currently in her third year of a Masters of Divinity program at Union Theological Seminary, where she is part of the Buddhism and Interreligious Engagement program, and working on a Masters thesis in Botanical Theology. She is a poet, farmer, birth doula and an Ancestral Medicine practitioner. Learn more at elasticportal.space.

Nancy Koch

Nancy spent her career as a teacher of children and a guidance counselor for nearly four decades. Nancy has two children and five grandsons whom she adores. She feels it is an honor to lead this community meditation group and is grateful for the opportunity.

Lynne Randall

Lynne Randall joined All Souls in 1996 and is a former trustee and president of the All Souls board of directors. She has been a dedicated Ashtanga yoga practitioner for more than 25 years and, since joining the All Souls Buddhism and Mindfulness sangha in 2020, has included meditation in her daily practice. Lynne spent the first half of her professional life working in finance and recently retired after 18 years as a development officer in the not-for-profit performing arts sector. She lives with her husband and dog in NYC and Rhode Island.

Lissa Joseph

Lissa Joseph is a member of All Souls Church. She learned and evolved from attending Pamela’s Mindfulness | Meditation | Buddhism sessions, for which she is very grateful. She taught first grade in Miami, Florida. When she moved to NYC, and worked for the NYC Dept. of Education. Her favorite music from which to sing is “The Great American Songbook.” Her greatest desire is to do her own cabaret act.

Guest Speakers

Amy B. Scher: amybscher.com An award-winning and best-selling author of books on healing, she employs energy therapy and teaches classes to help people break through blocks to become their happiest, healthiest and most expressive selves.

Amy Singer: A member of All Souls Buddhism and Mindfulness group since its inception. Retired art therapist and mental health counselor who has served as a Lay Pastoral Associate and a Friendship Circle Leader. An advocate for practicing mindfulness in daily living.

Ananta: ananta.earth A mindfulness practitioner and social justice advocate with more than 20 years of experience, he is a teacher with the Mindfulness Center at Brown University and a Bodhi Yoga teacher whose practice has been shaped by years of living and practicing in Buddhist communities globally.

Cathy Trentalancia: cathytrentalancia.com A certified mindfulness and meditation instructor from the Compassion Teacher Training at Nalanda Institute, MNDFL and various other institutions, she has been meditating for more than 25 years and teaches meditation privately and in corporations.

Ellen Abrams: ellen-abrams.com A therapist with 25+ years of clinical experience as a Marriage and Family Therapist in community mental health clinics, hospices, and in private practice, she first came to contemplative practices and compassionate care by way of the Zen Hospice Project in her early twenties.

Ellen Mendlow regularly attends our Buddhism & Mindfulness programs. She has practiced Buddhism for over a decade, recently with Sravasti Abbey and Shantideva Center. She is a meditation leader and certified yoga teacher and is thrilled to share her passion for combining contemplative practice and mind-body science with a broad audience.

Gay Doherty: www.gaydoherty.com/ Gay works from psychodynamic and attachment-based approaches to therapy. Psychodynamic Psychotherapy involves having a better awareness of patterns of behavior that have evolved and how they may prevent one from moving forward. Attachment-based Psychotherapy brings to focus the importance of human relationships in order to grow.

Hui Neng Stan Koehler, Roshi: hollowboneszen.org/hui-neng-Stan-Koehler-roshi With a long history of bringing meditation to the underserved (youths, incarcerated people and formerly incarcerated people), he has been actively involved in the Hollow Bones Order and is an ordained Zen priest who took Inka transmission. He aims to aid community members by applying Zen principles to daily challenges.

Kaira Jewel Lingo: www.kairajewel.com An author and teacher who studied under and was ordained by Thich Nhat Hanh, and lived as a Buddhist nun for fifteen years. She teaches, and leads retreats internationally, helping to train a new and more diverse generation of Buddhist and Mindfulness teachers.

Karuna Cayton: karunacayton.com An author and licensed psychotherapist who lived at Kopan Monastery for 13 years studying Buddhist psychology and philosophy, he is the principal at The Karuna Group, a project engaged in interpreting Buddhist psychological theory and interventions for modern people.

Kimberly Brown: meditationwithheart.com An author; a Certified Mindfulness Teacher, Professional Level (CMT-P), and a Buddhist student of nearly two decades, she employs Buddhist techniques and modern psychotherapeutic modalities to guide others toward wholeness and well-being.

Lavina Shamdasani: compassioninstitute.com/teachers/lavina-shamdasani She is a certified Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) instructor with the Compassion Institute, where she studied neuroscience, philosophy and pedagogy of compassion. CCT was developed in 2009 at Stanford University by Thupten Jinpa, Ph.D.

Marshall Kupka-Moore: www.sourcewellness.co Marshall has been meditating his entire adult life and has a passion for sharing peace and wellness with people wherever he goes. He is a 200-hour certified Vinyasa yoga teacher and has taken multiple trips to India, met the Dalai Lama, lived with and learned from monks, and advised Emory University students exploring the intersection of Buddhism and mind-body sciences. Currently, Marshall is the CEO of Source Wellness and co-founder of the Bed-Stuy Art Residency.

Martha Willams and John Scilipote: www.breakbread.world/ Martha is an avid student of transformation, meditation, and storytelling, with certification from The Coaches Training Institute and OM Yoga. She is committed to helping evolve our collective mind and body through cultural and artistic creation. For 30 years, John has studied Nondual Kabbalistic Healing and Nondual Shamanism and has recently been certified as a Soulful Facilitator. He is committed to helping people embrace that which transforms, opening them to be more fully in relationship with others and the world.

Mary Jo Meadow is professor emerita of psychology and religious studies from Minnesota State University at Mankato. She has been teaching mindfulness in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia since 1987. She reared eight children. She has 17 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. She now lives in Minnesota with two beloved cats. With thanks to Mary Jo who has kindly offered this class to our community as a gift. (For those who sign up for the class, I’ll include a note explaining that dana is a part of the Buddhist tradition, and I’ll let them know how to make offerings if they wish to.)

Mary Reilly Nichols: meditationmary.com Serves on the faculty of the Nalanda Institute, is a member of the Bronxville Psychiatric Wellness Group, and has been practicing and teaching yoga, meditation and stress management since 1982. She spent five years in residence in the ashrams of Swami Muktananda.

Mickie Brown, R.N.: www.mickiebrown.com/ A Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher trained at the Center for Mindfulness at UMass. She teaches MBSR and is Clinical Manager for Education, Mindfulness, and Patient Well-being at the Selikoff Centers for Occupational Health, and the World Trade Center Health Program at the Mount Sinai Health System.

Mona Chopra: www.peopletreewellness.com/ A healer, licensed acupuncturist, and board certified hypnotherapist, who also utilizes meditation, EFT tapping, and therapeutic yoga in her practice to alleviate emotional distress and reduce physical pain.

Patricia Muehsam, M.D.: transformationalmedicine.org/ She was a pioneer in the alternative medicine movement as a practitioner, educator, and research scientist. She founded Transformational Medicine, an individualized and whole-person approach to healing, wellness, and living.

Rebecca Li: rebeccali.org She teaches meditation and Dharma classes, gives public lectures and leads Chan retreats in North America, the United Kingdom and Taiwan. Her writings have appeared in numerous publications. In 2016 she received Dharma transmission and became a Dharma heir in the Dharma Drum Lineage of Chan Master Sheng Yen.

Rev. Allen Wells: muuf.org/our-ministers A minister with the Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship since 1976, he offers counseling and teaches insight meditation. He completed a program with the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and is interested in unifying the interior, spiritual quality of our lives with the external, interpersonal and political areas.

Rev. Kim Crawford Harvie: ascboston.org/about/minadstaff.html Ordained into the Unitarian Universalist ministry in 1984, she was called to Arlington Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts in 1989, where she continues to serve as Senior Minister. In Boston, Rev. Crawford Harvie co-founded two non-profit organizations: In the Best Interests of the Children, dedicated to providing educational and material assistance to young people and families affected by pediatric HIV/AIDS; and The Shared Heart, a traveling exhibition and book of photographs (released in 1997 by William Morrow) of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender teenagers with accompanying text in their own words, designed to support the Massachusetts Safe Schools Initiative.

Richard Einhorn: richardeinhorn.com Richard started a daily meditation practice after a friend took him to see the Dalai Lama speak in New York in 2014. He is a member of the Brooklyn Shantideva Center community, where he’s attended numerous teachings, gone on several retreats, and taken the Discovering Buddhism course. He co-teaches “Buddhism in a Nutshell,”with Pamela Patton. He has led meditation for the All Souls Monday Night Hospitality guests. A composer whose music is regularly performed both in the US and abroad, Richard is also an advocate for people with hearing loss and a hearing healthcare consultant.

Shelley Tupper: shelleytupper.com She is a Certified Professional Coach and a Practitioner in Positive Psychology. She trains individuals and businesses on how to amplify success and happiness through proven positive psychology and coaching techniques. She’s also trained in MasterMind and Resilience methods.

Susan Brandwayn has been studying buddhism and practicing meditation for over 20 years. She is a member of Tibet House and Jewel Heart. Her teachers have included the Dalai Lama, Gelek Rinpoche, Robert Thurman, Joe Loizzo and Mary Reilly Nichols among others. Susan was a member of All Souls in the 1990s and is happy to be back. Susan is an economist by training, with over 30 years of practice in New York, first in Wall Street and then at the United Nations. She met her husband Thord there. They live in New York. Susan is a native from Colombia.

Tengyur Rinpoche: Tulku Tenzin Gyurmey Rinpoche is an internationally-renowned Tibetan Buddhist scholar and teacher and civic leader in Tawang, India. He completed his Geshe Lharampa degree (the equivalent of a PhD) at Sera Jey Monastic University in 2022 and is currently in his final year of the Master of Theological Studies program at Harvard Divinity School. In 2021, he co-founded the US-based nonprofit, Wisdom Bridges, to support education that bridges traditional wisdom and contemporary learning for Himalayan children. He has served as an interpreter for His Holiness the Dalai Lama, participated in international conferences, and written many articles on Tibetan literature and on science and Buddhism.

Tim Olmsted: steamboatbuddhistcenter.org/our-history As a student of Buddhism for more than 45 years, Tim is a founder and a senior instructor at the Tergar Meditation Community under the guidance of the brilliant Tibetan meditation teacher Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. Tim spends much of his time leading ‘Joy of Living’ meditation retreats. At the request of his friend Pema Chödrön, Tim was for three years the director of Gampo Abbey, the largest monastery in the West.

Upayadhi: upayadhi.com/about Among her many spiritual, philosophical and academic pursuits, she holds a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher certification and for more than 17 years has undergone intensive training with the Triratna Buddhist Community, where she was ordained in 2018. She offers meditation practice and spiritual mentoring.

Venerable Amy Miller: amymiller.com As a Buddhist nun in the Tibetan tradition, Venerable offers teachings and leads retreats and pilgrimages around the world. Venerable has been teaching extensively since 1992; her style emphasizes a practical approach to integrating Buddhist philosophy into everyday life.

Venerable Robina Courtin: Ordained since the late 1970s, Ven. Robina has worked full time since then for Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s FPMT. Her life and work with prisoners have been featured in the documentary films Chasing Buddha and Key to Freedom. For more information, visit https://robinacourtin.com/

Deep gratitude to the teachers, monastics, and lay practitioners,

named here, and unnamed, past, present and future,

whose practice make our practice possible.