Insight Network Teachers

The Insight Network Teachers are a group of experienced Australian Dharma teachers. All teachers in the group have fifteen years or more experience in Dharma practice, have a broad understanding of Buddhist perspectives and the ability to see mindfulness and other types of meditation in the context of those perspectives. In addition to time spent teaching on retreats, each member of the group has spent regular periods on retreat as a practitioner. These periods generally amount to six months or more in total time spent in silent retreats. All teachers have a commitment to ethics, both broadly and in terms of respectful teacher-student relationships. While teachers in the group have diverse teaching styles and different approaches to the Dharma, each teacher has been recognised by peers as having a solid level of understanding.  New teachers are at times invited by a panel of senior teachers. All teachers in the group run retreats and do so on a dana basis. It’s not uncommon for dharma teachers to run fee-based programs related to stress management or applied Buddhist practices for people working or teaching in the health or services sectors. Some teachers also teach in academic settings with the regular financial arrangements. Insight Meditation teaching  - as distinct from the programs mentioned above -  is traditionally dana based. * Apart from those with an asterisk, teachers follow the dana-based arrangement in all their Insight Meditation teachings. ..

	Emma Pittaway teaches an open ‘natural awareness’ approach that emphasises meditation as a way of being in the world, integrated into our daily lives. Inspired by the Buddha and his followers, who lived and meditated in the forest, she draws on the natural world to support her practice and seeks out wild places for meditation. She first encountered the Dharma in 1999 and has practised with Vajrayana and Theravada teachers in India, Nepal, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia and Australia. Her main training has been in the Burmese Mahasi and Shwe Oo Min lineages and she began her teaching apprenticeship under the mentorship of her primary teacher Patrick Kearney in 2019. Emma is a mum with two primary-aged kids and a part-time social scientist. She is a the principal insight teacher at the Kuan Yin Meditation Centre in Lismore, NSW.
	Carol Perry has more than 45 years meditation experience in the Insight tradition.  She is a senior teacher with Melbourne Insight Meditation. In 1972 Carol co-founded a rural community where she continues to live. Carol is a long time social activist on ecological issues and is passionate about supporting cohesive and harmonious community in all its forms.  She has a monthly Women’s Wisdom and the Dharma group that started 16 years ago. Carol is a Certified Hakomi Therapist.  A collection of Carol’s talks given during the pandemic lockdowns and epic flooding of the Lismore is available with the title The Whole of the Path: Dharma Community and Social Action. Details on how to order can be found on Carol's webpage.
	Jenny Taylor has been a dharma practitioner for 30 years, studying with a range of teachers, initially 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.
	Mal Huxter is a clinical psychologist in private practice and a Dharma teacher. He is the author of Healing the Heart and Mind with Mindfulness Routledge, 2016. He designs and conducts courses, workshops and silent retreats.  He has been teaching mindfulness and the four heart qualities (loving kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity) to the general public, clinical populations, therapists and other professionals since 1991. As a psychologist he is a teacher of MSC and CEB and trained in a range of therapies including CFT. As a meditator and meditation teacher he began training in Buddhist meditation practices in 1975, living in Thailand as a Buddhist monk in the forest tradition for two years in the late 1970s. Though mostly within the Theravada he has also practiced within Tibetan Mahayana and Zen traditions.
	Subhana Barzaghi* is a senior guiding teacher in both the Insight and Zen Traditions with 50 years’ experience in Buddhist meditation.  She is the founding teacher of Kuan Yin Meditation in Lismore and helped form Blue Gum Sangha in Sydney.  Subhana is an experienced psychotherapist, clinical supervisor and trainer for the Buddhism and Psychotherapy course.  She is a director and trainer for the Insight Meditation Institute Inc., and co-teaches the 2 year Mindfulness & Compassion Teacher Trainer course and is a guiding teacher for the 4/5 year Dharma Teacher Training and mentoring program.  Subhana leads regular Insight retreats in the Northern Rivers and Sydney and Zen sesshins at Kodoji – Temple of the Ancient ground, SZC retreat Centre and Melbourne Zen Group.
	Suzie Brown* offers Dharma teachings with a focus on embodied and nature-based practice, and the heart practices of joy, loving kindness, compassion and equanimity. She aims to bring the Buddha’s profound teachings alive and relevant to our current world challenges. Suzie co-founded the Melbourne Insight Meditation Group in 2009 and has trained as an Insight Dharma Teacher in Australia with the Insight Meditation Institute, with Subhana Barzaghi and Carol Perry, and in the USA, with James Baraz. Shas has taught in the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program (MMTCP) led by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach and is a Dharma teacher in their online dharma platform, Banyan. Suzie has also worked as a climate and environmental activist for two decades and teaches Eco-dharma and mindful approaches to dealing with climate anxiety and grief.
	Patrick Kearney is an independent dharma teacher in the lineage of Mahasi Sayadaw. He has trained extensively in the Mahasi approach to insight meditation, where his principal teachers were Panditarama Sayadaw and John Hale. He has also trained in the Diamond Sangha lineage of Zen Buddhism, his principal teachers being Robert Aitken Roshi and Paul Maloney Roshi. Patrick has a particular interest in the original teachings of the Buddha, before Theravada or Mahayana were 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.
	Victor von der Heyde has been practising meditation for thirty five years. He's spent over two years in total in silent retreats and has taken dharma teaching roles since the mid 1990s. He was co-founder of Sydney Insight Meditators and of the Bodhgaya Development Association. He also trained in Gestalt Therapy and worked for years as a counsellor. His main teacher was Rob Burbea from Gaia House in the UK. Victor writes: These days my passions in teaching - and practice - include  ethics, exploring the various responses to climate breakdown and the ways that we get often stuck with particular concepts of self and world. And stuck with particular meditation practices. My intention is to open up freeing and soulful possibilities for people
	Robyn Gibson has been practicing and studying meditation for 30 years, predominantly in the Mahasi lineage of Theravadan Buddhism, with experience in yoga, Mahayana and Vajrayana practices. Her principal teachers have been Patrick Kearney and Carol Perry. Robyn has been teaching since 2016 and leads one-day workshops, women’s circles and multi-day retreats. Her approach brings together the radical teachings of freedom through embodied presence that the Buddha taught, deep ecology and other nature-based practices, and creative expression – allowing for inquiry into what it means to live a full and just human life on this earth, and how to face the challenges of our current times with courage and integrity. Robyn lives on Djaara Country in Castlemaine, central Victoria.
	Alan Bassal* has been studying and practicing Buddha’s teachings for over 35 years beginning in the Vipassana meditation tradition and then developing in Eastern & Western Insight. He is a certified mindfulness based Hakomi therapist and for many years has integrated the Buddha dharma and psychotherapy with leadership development in organisations. He is the current chairman of Sydney Insight Meditators and chairman and co-founder of the Insight Meditation Institute where he co-leads Mindfulness & Compassion teacher training in Sydney and the 4-year Insight Dharma Teacher Training program. Alan’s teachings are eclectic and practical. He encourages people to awaken to each moment and realise the fulfillment they seek.
	Winton Higgins began meditating and practising the dharma in 1987. He took up teaching meditation in 1995. In 2003, he became a regular teacher at Bluegum Sangha. He is a member of Kookaburra Sangha, in Sydney's Inner West, and also teaches for Sydney Insight Meditators, which he helped found. Winton’s meditation teaching has developed towards non-formulaic insight practice based on the Buddha’s original teachings, while his dharmic orientation inclines towards a secular Buddhism. He fosters interest in the original teachings and their affinity with modern streams of thought and progressive social commitments. He is the author of After Buddhism: a workbook, and Revamp: writings on secular Buddhism (published by Tuwhiri in 20118 and 2021 respectively). A writer and a social-science academic, he and his partner Lena have 2 daughters and 3 grandchildren.
	Will James Will attended his first Insight Meditation Retreat in the late 1970s with Christopher Titmuss, this meeting kindled a deep interest in meditation and a great love for the Dharma teachings and practices. Will is the guiding teacher at the Tallowwood Sangha in Bellingen N.S.W, he regularly leads retreats in Bellingen, Byron Bay and annually in Bali. Will has taught at the Dharma Gatherings in Australia and India, taught the Australian Dharma Facilitators Program and teaches Dharma Study and Inquiry.Will's teaching lays great emphasis on seeing into the ‘dependent arising' and empty nature of all phenomena. This seeing makes possible a deep understanding that frees the mind and opens the heart.
	Radha Nicholson teaches the cultivation of wisdom and compassion through insight. Her teachings focus on inquiry and the non-dual nature of reality. Radha first met Christopher Titmuss in India in 1975 where she participated in extended retreats. She is a guiding teacher for Bay Insight in Byron Bay. Radha teaches retreats in Australia and regularly teaches with Christopher in Sarnath, India, at the annual Dharma Gathering. She is a Registered Psychologist and member of the Australian Psychological Society with a private practice in Bangalow, in Northern NSW. Radha is the mother of four children and also has grandchildren.
	Jess Huon* has been engaged in meditative and embodiment practices since she was seventeen years old. She has trained in traditional Buddhist monastic settings and also within intensive periods of solitary forest practice. This training has taken place in Asia, Australia, Spain, and the USA. Jess holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts and a post grad in the therapeutic arts practice. She is a published author (The Dark Wet, Giramondo Publishing) and when based in Melbourne, writes and co-directs for rollercoaster, a theatre company comprising actors with intellectual disabilities. Whilst deeply informed by but not bound to tradition, her style is grounded in contemporary life. Jess teaches retreats in both India and Australia. She currently teaches regularly with the Melbourne Insight Group.
	Louise Taylor is a midwife and Insight Dharma teacher with over 25 years experience in meditation and dharma practice.  Her principle teachers are Subhana Barzaghi and Patrick Kearney. Louise is the founding member of Radiant Mind Insight Meditation in Tasmania. She writes: What inspires me about the dharma is its practical application of meditation and mindfulness that helps us navigate our tender, ever changing experience of being human. In this way mindfulness becomes a lifelong friend in the journey to clear seeing and freedom from suffering. My aim as a teacher is to support people to develop this practice for themselves and enjoy its cultivation of love and wisdom through residential retreats and ongoing guidance, for the benefit of all beings.
	Lizzie Turnbull has been engaged in Buddhist practice since 1985, beginning in the Tibetan tradition and later in Zen and Insight. The approach Lizzie takes to teaching meditation is open and non-sectarian, encouraging embodied awareness, a compassionate and loving heart and creative inquiry into the possibilities of freedom. She has long been interested in the integration of the Buddha Dharma with the social sciences and psychotherapy. She is a somatic psychotherapist in private practice in Byron Shire, Northern NSW.
	Anna Markey was introduced to Buddhist practice in India in 1983.  She took teachings from a variety of Tibetan teachers and attended retreats with insight teacher, Christopher Titmuss, the same year.  She has been studying the Buddhadharma and practising insight meditation ever since. Anna also practised for a number of years with a Zen group in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh and in the Burmese Mahasi method of practice with Patrick Kearney. After studying for some years with Jason Siff she is now a member of a cohort of teachers in Australia and USA who teach in the "Reflective Meditation" approach. She is interested in the early teachings of the Buddha and in using a gentle, receptive approach to meditation to see into our experience in order to bring about change and liberation in our daily lives.

Bobbi Alan was a teacher in this group but no longer runs retreats. For many years she ran Stillness in Action retreats and then Natural Mind reteats with her husband John Allan. . Ellen Davidson was one of the teachers in this group for two decades. She was guiding teacher of the Kuan Yin Meditation Centre.  She has retired from teaching Sexton Bourke was one of the teachers in this group before his death in May 2011. An obituary for Sexton is here and there is a 6 minute video of Sexton talking to other teachers about meditation. There are also very experienced community Insight teachers including Gawaine Powell Davies and Jonathon Page