bio

dharma practice

i have been fairly obsessed with meditation since i first got the bug for it in 2013. for several years, i worked to establish a daily practice and bring mindfulness into my life, while continuing to read books and listen to podcasts about meditation and the dharma on my own.

in 2017, i attended my first silent meditation retreat at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. the prolonged silence, the intimacy with my own heart and psyche, and the wisdom shared by my teachers were all profoundly moving to me, and my faith in meditation practice grew immensely.

on that retreat i met Tempel Smith, who then became my primary dharma mentor in 2019.

i've sat many more silent retreats since the first one, adding up to over 8 months of intensive practice. the longest of these retreats were a 3-month period at the Insight Meditation Society (2022), and a 2-month period at Boundless Refuge (2024). i am forever grateful to have been able to attend these long retreats, and for the skillfulness, ease, and authenticity that continue to unfold in their wake.

while the bulk of my meditation practice is rooted in the insight tradition and early Buddhism, in recent years i have become increasingly interested and practiced in the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions as well.

integration practices

meditation and Buddhist practice hold a central and special place in my path, but they are far from the only modalities and lenses that i love. over the years, i have worked with various coaches in psychological methods such as Internal Family Systems (IFS), Core Transformation (CT), Ideal Parent Figure protocol (IPF), and attachment repair practices to help me turn towards the content of the mind, rather than dive beneath it.

psychedelic medicines have been a great benefit to me, and i continue to practice fruitfully with them. while medicine practice is not a replacement for the many sober practices, it does create windows of opportunity where deeper structures of the heart, mind, and body can be accessible, and met with uncommon clarity and resource.

while the actual relationships of life are where the deepest transformations and rewards often lie, i've also found that relational practices provide important bridges. among my favorites are circling, social meditations, relational interplay, and contact improvisation.

teaching and coaching

i have always loved sharing what i know. to me, learning to teach, embody, and transmit a skill is an integral part of continuing to learn and master it, and i've always wanted to be of service in the most fundamental ways i could find.

in 2021, i took a year-long meditation teacher training program through Inward Bound Mindfulness. working with teenagers has been very rewarding and given me a richer understanding of both practice and teaching. as one of my mentors, Jessica Morey, told me, teens don't care about who you are or about what the tradition says — they just care if it works.

with the approval of my teacher Tempel, i began offering coaching calls in meditation in 2022. i love being welcomed in the world of someone's personal practice, hearing about their journey, seeing reflections of my path in theirs, and sharing what wisdom and experience i have to offer. i love seeing how the dharma works not just in my mind, but in minds in general.

over the next couple years i taught some group classes in person at the church in Rochester, NY where i was working as a musician, and then in 2025 i began teaching online classes, including my 8-week class "Meditation Fundamentals: Practicing for a Free Heart," and 5-week class "Metta May." in 2026, i taught a half-day workshop titled "Sincerity and Sovereignty" at the San Francisco Dharma Collective.

back in 2024, i became very interested in attachment work, as i realized it could help me and others access deeply fundamental points of pain in the psyche and transform them. i have been exploring my own attachment healing with Amanda Ngo since 2024, and studying in the Attachment Alchemy program as a practitioner with Chloe Good and Spencer Jacobson since 2025. Attachment Alchemy includes training in parts work, Ideal Parent Figure protocol, relational and psychodynamic attachment healing, and somatic expression.

in 2026, i continued to explore modalities specifically to help me be an effective coach, including training programs in Core Transformation (CT) and Motivational Interviewing (MI). i find all of these methods wonderfully illuminating and practical for skillfully meeting the various layers of a person's experience that wish to be addressed. my coaching calls have included parts work and attachment repair since 2025, and i've now given over 450 hours of coaching sessions.

teaching and coaching, to me, are not just possible because of the practice i have done, but also an ongoing part of my practice itself. when someone shows up to a call with me, i have the opportunity to practice my richest presence, my tenderest compassion, my deepest sincerity and humility, my most refined discernment and skill, my gentleness and my strength. what a blessing, to be in the business of helping human beings in the deepest way i can.