MARTINE BATCHELOR lived in Korea as a Zen nun under the guidance of Master Kusan for ten years. She is the author of Meditation for Life, The Path of Compassion, Women in Korean Zen and Let Go: A Buddhist Guide to Breaking Free of Habits. She is a member of the Gaia House Teacher Council.  She teaches meditation retreats worldwide and lives in France. Her latest work is the forthcoming The Spirit of the Buddha.

STEPHEN BATCHELOR was a Buddhist monk in the Tibetan and Zen traditions for ten years.  Known for his agnostic and secular approach to the Buddhadharma, he has authored several books, including the bestselling Buddhism Without Beliefs.  His latest book is Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist. He lives in France with his wife Martine and teaches seminars and leads meditation retreats worldwide. www.stephenbatchelor.org

Jason teaches an approach to insight meditation called recollective awareness – based on the principles of gentleness, permission, and interest.  It emphasizes open awareness, and encourages the student to remember, write down and reflect on her or his meditation experience, and in this way, mine its insights. 
The approach thus honors both the mindfulness and the recollection aspects of the Buddha’s original teaching of the ‘direct path’ to realisation. 
Jason Siff’s long experience includes time spent in Sri Lanka as a monk in the 1980s. Over the last two decades Jason has been teaching retreats in the USA and Australia. Jason’s approach to teaching meditation has been enriched by his psychotherapy training.  A number of his teachings are available at www.skillfulmeditation.org, the website of the Skillful Meditation Project where he is the guiding teacher.

Patrick Kearney is an independent dharma teacher in the lineage of Mahasi Sayadaw. He has trained extensively in the Mahasi approach to insight meditation, his principle teachers being Panditarama Sayadaw and John Hale. He has also trained in the Diamond Sangha lineage of Zen Buddhism. His original teacher was Robert Atkin Roshi, and he has since studied with other Diamond Sangha teachers in Australia.
Patrick has a particular interest in the original teachings of the Buddha - Buddhism as it was before Theravada or Mahayana were ever thought of. He studies Pali, the language of the earliest surviving Indian recension of the Buddha's teachings, and seeks to bring his understanding of the early texts to the practice of dharma in the contemporary world.

Betsy Faen has been meditating for about 40 years - first in the Goenka Vipassana tradition and later in both the zen and insight traditions.  For the last few years she has focused her practice around Recollective Awareness, appreciating its gentle, allowing approach. Betsy teaches regularly at Beaches Sangha and occasionally at Bluegum Sangha in Sydney.   She has a private practice offering counseling and supervision.

Joyce Kornblatt is a Blackheath resident and Buddhist practitioner in the Insight tradition for 25 years. A writer and Hakomi-trained psychotherapist, she has offered writing/meditation workshops and retreats in New South Wales since 2003.  She is the founding teacher of Cloud Refuge Sangha in Blackheath. 

Jampa Jaffe has been teaching Buddhism for over twenty years. He was a monk in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition for seventeen years, fourteen of which were spent studying and meditating in India and one in Thailand meditating in the Vipassana tradition. Jampa was resident teacher at Buddha House in Adelaide for eleven years and taught a Dharma teachers’ training program in Italy for seven years. For the last three years he has participated in teacher training retreats with Jason Siff. Jampa teaches regularly at the Vajrayana Institute in Ashfield and periodically at Beaches Sangha in the Northern Beaches. 

Subhana Barzaghi is a Zen Buddhist & Insight Meditation teacher and has been a Buddhist practitioner for 35 years. She is a resident teacher of the Sydney Zen Centre and Roshi in the Diamond Sangha. Subhana is a founder of Blue Gum Sangha Sydney and Kuan Yin Meditation Centre in Lismore. Subhana teaches regular dharma workshops and intensive Zen meditation and Insight Vipassana retreats throughout Australia and New Zealand. For retreat schedules: www.subhana.com.au

Victor von der Heyde has been practicing meditation for over thirty years. He studied with a wide range of teachers in India, Nepal, the US and Australia and these included Insight Meditation, Zen, Dzogchen and non-aligned teachers. Some of his major influences have been Toni Packer, Barry Magid and Rodney Smith. He has taken dharma teaching roles since the early 1990s and has been leading yatras since they started in Australia in 2006. His particular interest is in helping people understand the different types of meditation so that they're in a position to choose what works for them. 

Victor has also completed graduate studies in Social Science, worked for many years as a counsellor, and is chairman of the Bodhgaya Development Association, an aid organisation that supports literacy and self-sufficiency programs in India.

Jenny Taylor has been a dharma practitioner for 30 years, studying with a range of teachers in the Thai forest tradition and the Mahasi tradition.  She began teaching 10 years ago and participates in teacher training retreats with Jason Siff.  She lives in Alice Springs, works as a visual artist and teaches art in remote communities.  She has a particular interest in the affinity between unstructured meditative experience and the practice of creative arts.

Christopher has been teaching Buddhadharma in Sydney for nine years. These days he lives in the Blue Mountains and teaches at Cloud Refuge Sangha with his wife Joyce Kornblatt. His main interest is in adapting the methods and concepts of modern psychology, phenomenology and psychotherapy in ways that can support our embodied realisation of this profound, ancient heritage.

Lizzie Turnbull has been practising in various Buddhist traditions since 1985: Vajrayana, Zen and Vipassana. She has recently begun teaching Insight meditation and has attended the last 2 teacher training retreats with Jason Siff. Lizzie is a somatic psychotherapist in private practice and teaches on the Australian Association of Buddhist Counsellors and Psychotherapists (AABCAP) professional training programme.

Andrew Luff(Nipako) lives in Sydney with his family. He has been practicing Buddhist meditation for 18years. Eight of which he was a Buddhist monk in the Ajahn Cha Monasteries in England where he trained under Ajahn Sumedho and Ajahn Sucitto. He emphasizes the need to take responsibility for our practice, investigation into how we practice, and how to integrate it into all aspects of our life.