SATI SANGHA - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Treasurer
- San Diego, California
Like so many others of my generation, I first became interested in Buddhism by reading books by Alan Watts, the Beat Poets, and others. Then in 1975 I sat my first retreat and began actually practicing meditation, first in Rochester, New York, and then at the Zen Center of Los Angeles with Maezumi Roshi. Later, in 1983, my wife and I moved to San Diego to join Joko Beck when she opened the Zen Center of San Diego. I studied there for many years while maintaining a career in education and helping to raise a small family. Around 2012, after my retirement, I was looking for a fresh approach and joined the Skillful Meditation Project led by Jason Siff. After sitting several retreats, I joined a teacher training cohort, and now work with Linda Modaro to develop my skills in leading meditation groups in Reflective Meditation.
I think what really attracts me about this approach is the spirit of exploration and the quality of kindness to myself and others that seems to arise from the practice. I currently work with students in San Diego under Linda's guidance. My other interests include a very strong engagement in the climate change movement as well as continuing to hike in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California and the canyons of Utah and Arizona as I have for years.
Dr. Stacy Waneka is a board-certified Family Medicine physician. She received her medical degree at the University of California, Davis, completing her residency training at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center. She has been in private practice in the Santa Monica area since 2000, and is currently on staff at Summit Health Group in Thousand Oaks.
Stacy spent part of her early life in Saudi Arabia and has since traveled extensively, including such adventures as trekking through Nepal and motorcycling across India. She also engaged in more serious ventures as when she provided emergency relief care to Kosovar refugees during the Bosnian conflict.
Being on the ‘front lines' of witnessing her patients' everyday aches and pains, she brings important perspectives to the Council; one being, how to make Reflective Meditation more accessible to local area medical professionals and their patients.
Janet Keyes has been practicing meditation for over 30 years. To both deepen her own practice and to find ways to bring the Dharma into her community, Janet helped organize and put on the Mount Tam Women's Retreat for over twenty years. She wrote two books about that experience, both of which are available on Amazon: Our Own Teachers, which describes the retreat, and Dharma Camp, Twenty Years on Mt. Tam, a step-by-step workbook for people wishing to organize meditation retreats in a natural setting. She has also served for several as a volunteer chaplain in hospital and community health care settings.
A deep longing to teach the Dharma drew her to a two-year teacher-training program with the Skillful Meditation Project, which she completed in 2016. Janet is a householder, swimmer, singer, writer and occasional poet; her book of poems This Deliberate Life is no longer in print, but she hopes that eventually some of her poems and Dharma talks will find their way onto her website where a schedule of regular sittings, and retreats can also be found.
Jennie has been studying Buddhism and practicing meditation for over ten years. She experimented with a variety of techniques until she discovered, and began training in, Shambhala Meditation in 2013. But when she found Reflective Meditation in 2015, she felt as though she'd found her ‘spot'. So far, Jennie has attended three Sati Sangha retreats and looks forward to many more. Jennie retired from a long career in the medical field in 2012, so she has more time to devote to her studies and practice and is grateful for the opportunity to serve on Sati Sangha's Council.
Kim Henderson became a student of Recollective Awareness Meditation in 2008 and has continued a reflective practice ever since. Professionally, she is an author, writer, magazine editor and writing workshop leader. She wrote the award-winning environmental book 50 Simple Steps to Save the World's Rainforests. Currently, she serves as executive editor of Beauty Store Business magazine. Formerly, she was the longtime editor of Healthy Living magazine, a national natural health publication. As a writing workshop leader, Kim helps writers discover a well of resources within by incorporating time in nature and informal meditation into the creative process. She has led a writing workshop/adventure in the Peruvian Amazon for the Amazon Center for Environmental Education and Research and hosts an ongoing writing group in the Los Angeles area. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Kim began meditating and studying Buddhist teachings in 2003. In 2007, serendipity brought her to a three-day Recollective Awareness Meditation retreat. Finding this practice extremely inspiring, she became a student of Nelly Kaufer Lead Meditation Teacher at Pine Street Sangha. Kim served as the secretary for one of Pine Street's sitting groups and is presently participating in the mentor/teacher training program in Reflective Meditation offered by Nelly and Linda Modaro, Sati Sangha's Lead Meditation Teacher. Kim considers these teachers one of her life's greatest gifts.
Kim is a self described homebody. Since retiring, her time is spent helping with her three young grandchildren, tending to her garden, or she can be found at her art table painting in watercolor. All profits from paintings sold are donated to one of her three favorite animal rights or environmental protection foundations.
Job Titles:
- Founder
- Lead Teacher
- Director, Lead Meditation and Dharma Teacher, and Council Member
Linda Modaro is the founder and lead teacher at Sati Sangha, a vibrant online meditation community that offers daily virtual meditation sittings and online retreats throughout the year. Linda and Sati Sangha collaborate with Nelly Kaufer of Pine Street Sangha to creatively evolve the practice and the ways it is offered. Their 2023 creation is their co-authored book - Reflective Meditation: cultivating kindness and curiosity in the Buddha's company. During the height of the pandemic in 2020 their sanghas meet daily online to practice Reflective Meditation - Piti Sangha, their shared community, was born and continues to meet daily. As a leader, Linda is accountable to the Sati Sangha Council members, her mentees, and her students as well as to a peer group of teachers. Her self-care includes walking in nature, singing, line dancing, reading, and individual therapy. Her history: Linda began teaching Buddhist meditation in 2008 after she completed her intensive training for meditation and dharma teaching in Recollective Awareness Meditation. Previous to that, she had a thriving acupuncture practice in Santa Monica, California, for more than 20 years. A master of Qi Gong, Linda also created a best-selling, four-part instructive Qi Gong video series called Discovering Chi: Energy Exercises (offered freely on the Sati Sangha website).
Lisa Sloan Strom was raised on warm beach sand, super-8 filmmaking, and micro van family adventuring. These early imprints have nourished a deep connection with nature, creativity and humankind. Lisa has a psychotherapy practice in Portland, Oregon and finds meaning working with others to support their personal recovery process.
Job Titles:
- Founder
- Lead Teacher
- Founder and Lead Teacher at Pine Street Sangha
Nelly Kaufer is the founder and lead teacher at Pine Street Sangha, a meditation center in Portland, Oregon. Nelly was introduced to Vipassana (Mindfulness) meditation in 1978 on retreats taught by Ruth Denison and began teaching women meditation soon thereafter, as there were no female teachers in her community at that time. She co-authored A Woman's Guide to Spiritual Renewal (HarperOne,1994), a book for which she interviewed women about their spiritual experiences. She completed two intensive teacher trainings, one in Vipassana with Jacqueline Mandell and the other in Recollective Awareness Meditation with Jason Siff. Nelly is a psychotherapist in private practice, integrating Buddhist psychology into her clinical orientation and has been teaching continuing education workshops for mental health professionals for about twenty-five years. Thanks to a grant from Hemera, a Buddhist foundation, she is creating a one-year, in-depth CE certificate program for mental health professionals which will nurture a meditative and contemplative practice, along with an experiential knowledge of Buddhist psychology -that integrates into their clinical orientation and interventions.
Wendy Liepman began practicing Recollective Awareness Meditation with Jason Siff in 1999. She has worked with Reflective Meditation teachers Linda Modaro, and Nelly Kaufer for over 4 years as well as teacher Mary Webster. She has attended retreats at Kairos House in Spokane Washington and Indralaya in the San Juan Islands and most recently at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico. She facilitates monthly Reflective Meditation, which she often calls Reflective Insight Meditation, meetings in San Luis Obispo on the third Saturday of the month. She is also a singer-songwriter and plays music with her husband Bob as well as with the band Shadowlands.