Retreat Leaders and Teachers
To see which retreats they are teaching on click on their image or text to see an individual page for more information.
Listed in alphabetical order.
Advayasiddhi
Advayasiddhi is a meditation and Dharma teacher living in Denmark. She loves meditation and loves sharing its deeply transformative powers on retreats. She met the Dharma under the Bodhi Tree in 1997, and has since then dedicated her life to explore how to wake up in the lives we have here and now. For the past 15 years she has been involved with retreats in various places around UK and Europe, using a friendly and down-to-earth teaching style. She has a particular link with Vajraloka Retreat Centre, where she teaches regularly and since 2020 has also been involved with a…
Alayasri
Alayasri has lived in rural Devon for the last 20yrs. She runs a small Sangha in Bridport. Her inspiration has grown over the years, working with myths and fairy stories to communicate the dharma. She is particularly moved by the early historical stories of woman practitioners and has explored the life and practices of Machig Labdron
Amalabandhu
Amalabandhu works at St Michael’s Hospice in Hastings and Rother, where he leads the Bereavement and Spiritual Support Services. His work brings together his love of the Dharma and his deep interest in the human experience of grief and loss. He is a co-founder of the Gender, Sexuality and Relationship Diversity Group at the Brighton Buddhist Centre, which offers a safe and supportive space for open exploration and connection. Amalabandhu is passionate about making the Dharma accessible to all and fostering a spirit of inclusivity and kindness in every aspect of practice and community life.
Arthaketu
Hi, my name is Arthaketu. I have been involved in the Triratna Buddhist Community for over 30 years. During that time, I have lived and practised as an active member of the Manchester Buddhist Centre, and for the last seven years I have been involved with teaching Buddhism and meditation in the Berlin Buddhist Centre. Many things have fascinated me during this time, but three stand out. The Body, its sensations, energy and the possibility to feel grounded and relaxed. The Imagination, and how we can connect to it through image, symbol, story, myth and ritual. Its capacity to help…
Aryajnana
Aryajnana(he/him) has been Ordained in the Triratna Buddhist Community since 2021, his name means Noble Wisdom. Aryajnana is a very generous contributor and a valuable team leader in the GSRD group, bringing along monthly something from the depths of his practice infused with the spirit of generosity. Aryajnana is very thoughtful and brings cake to the group, shares his love for nature, animals and all beings, and the Buddhist teachings. Aryajnana works as a psychotherapist, and as in the Buddhist path, so in his private work is interested in helping beings to progress towards Freedom.
Atula
Atula has been ordained in the Triratna Buddhist Order for over 40 years and is an experienced therapist and retreat leader who has a gift for using myth and symbol to take us into the depths of our being.
Balajit
Balajit (he/him) has been leading retreats and events across the UK for around 15 years. For several years, he lived and worked at Vajraloka Retreat Centre in North Wales. He is currently based in Birmingham, where he mixes Buddhist teaching responsibilities with work as a trauma therapist. He has studied the newly emerging psycho-biological approaches to trauma work- and is qualified in Somatic Experiencing, NARM therapy and SHEN Therapy. In the past few years, Balajit has been exploring correspondences between these emerging approaches and the canonical Dharma, as aids to becoming more embodied and the arising of the bodhicitta.
Danakumara
Danakumara trained in several different modalities including Scaravelli-inspired yoga, neo-Tantra, contemporary shamanism, and sound therapy, before turning more fully towards his training with the Triratna Buddhist Order. He was ordained in 2025 by Vajragupta and given the name Danakumara, which means “Prince of Giving.” He loves sharing the Buddhist path with others and creating contexts of loving kindness to support growth and transformation.
Dayajava
Dayajava is delighted to join the team having been an attendee at Wolf events for a few years. Literature was his way into spiritual practice and he finds the Wolf at the Door approach a wonderful way to deepen an appreciation of letters and life. He has been writing short stories since his childhood and runs story telling events at the Nottingham Buddhist Centre.
Jayachitta
Jayachitta has followed a Buddhist practice since 1981 and has been a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order since 1990. She has lived and worked with other Buddhists for a lot of that time. Since 2008 she has explored Dzogchen practice under the guidance of James Low. Jayachitta enjoys the practice of body-based methods to deepen experience of meditation and attending to the mind. Having trained in physical theatre and improvisation for over 25 years, she uses them as additional approaches to the spiritual life, based on embodied experience and play. In that spirit of play we can discover more…
Kamalasakhi (Sarah Whiteley)
Sarah says of her practice: “A brush with yoga in my late teens led me to esoteric martial arts which became my passion for a decade and a half. Practising and teaching Shintaido in Japan and Germany then brought me back to yoga as my main body work practice. Living in Brighton at the time gave me access to a lot of teachers and a vibrant yoga scene. My main teachers were Peter Blackaby and Monica Voss visiting from Canada. I subsequently completed a teacher training in Scaravelli-inspired yoga at Morley College. I now have twenty-plus years experience of teaching…
Lokadhi
Lokadhī has over 20 years’ meditation teaching experience, specialising in mindfulness and compassion-focused approaches and bringing both into her work as a therapist/counsellor.
Maitrikumara
Maitrikumara was ordained in 2022 and lives at the London Buddhist Centre. He is the Men’s Mitra Convenor at West London Buddhist Centre, where he helps to run classes, courses and retreats.
Maitrinita
Maitrinita has been exploring Buddhism and meditation since the mid-nineties and was ordained in 2017. She is a trained Breathworks mindfulness teacher. Maitrinita has often been on teams and co-led retreats and events for newcomers, regulars, families, and people of colour. Originally from Bristol. She lives in South London with her teenage daughter and is involved with the Brixton Buddhist community.
Mandarava
Mandarava is an artist, puppet maker, and storyteller who creates immersive settings for enactments and ritual. She has a background working in professional theatre/opera, as a puppeteer, puppet maker, scene painter, prop maker, and costume dyer. As well as her interest in working creatively, she has trained more recently in the ‘healing arts’ and is now working as a ‘Somatic Experiencing and Focusing Practitioner’. Both are body-oriented approaches that help bring about more aliveness and vitality inherent in our bodies and release what has been blocked or stuck in our lives. She is inspired by a holistic approach to practice…
Manjunaga
Manjunaga has been exploring the insights and practices of meditation, yoga and Buddhism for over 30 years and draws from his in-depth training in Buddhist meditation practices and yoga to create an embodied practice that addresses the body, heart and mind. Manjunaga has taught at the Manchester Buddhist Centre for many years as well as on regular yoga & meditation retreats. He was ordained into the Triratna Buddhist Order in 2005 where he was given the name Manjunaga which means ‘kind wisdom’. He has taught as a fully accredited yoga teacher in Manchester since completing his yoga training with Simon…
Mokshadarshini
Mokshadarshini has been teaching meditation and Buddhism for over 10 years at the Croydon Buddhist Centre. As well as having experience working in a number of team based right livelihoods, including in a cafe and charity shop, she has trained as a yoga teacher. Mokshadarshini also has a passion for stories, having raised two children and worked as an English teacher abroad and in London.
Morgan
Morgan (they /them) they have been part of the Triratna community as a Going for Refuge Mitra as an expression of their Dharma practice. Morgan is one of the founders of the GSRD group, the group has been a doorway for many people to find their way into the Buddhist tradition. Morgan works as a counsellor and they are a very experienced meditation teacher, adding to the Buddhist meditations other tools they have acquired at Bangor University on a Mindfulness Master course. They bring trauma-informed approaches to their work with a sense of curiosity and joy.
Nagadipa
Nagadipa’s work encompasses guiding vision quests, teaching Gendlin’s Focusing method – somatic explorations into the wisdom of the body, the deeper end of nature connection, ritual and myth. For more information on Nagadipa: www.theartofrewilding.com
Nagamudra
Nagamudra is a gifted story teller and has previously worked in the theatre and as a dramatherapist.
Nagasiddhi
Nagasiddhi currently works as a hospice chaplain. He regularly leads and supports retreats at Rivendell and is also an artist. He is known for the sense of humour and creativity he brings to his Dharma teaching. In particular, he helps others make connections between the Dharma and their own lives by using stories and images. His own artwork can be viewed at nagasiddhi.com.
Nagesvara
Nagesvara has been teaching meditation for nearly two decades and spent the whole of 2017 on meditation retreat in Spain. Over the last few years he has been sharing his enthusiasm for samadhi and dhyana practice. More recently he has completed a three-year-long retreat in the south of France during which he has, amongst other things, been deepening into formless just sitting and sadhana.
Padmacandra
Padmacandra (Pippa Meek) first attended a retreat with Wolf at the Door many moons ago, led by Ananda and Manjusvara. She says “I felt suddenly at home: able to be myself and happily anonymous at the same time. For me poetry is a state of mind that I aspire to abide in. Poetry seems to come from being embodied in the world – open to the senses as if for the first time”. Padmacandra’s poems have been widely published in magazines and in 2002 she edited, with much help from others, The Heart as Origami, an anthology of contemporary Buddhist…
Paramananda
Paramananda was ordained in 1985 at Tuscany by Sangharakshita. He has been chairman of both the West London Buddhist Centre and the first chair of the San Francisco Buddhist Centre. For the last 20 years, he has spent most of his time leading meditation retreats worldwide. He emphasises the inseperable relationship between body/mind. He has written a number of popular books on meditation and continues to lead inspiring and poetic retreats for experienced meditators. Including: Change Your Mind, A Deeper Beauty, The Body and The Myth of Meditation.
Parami
Parami is an ordained member of the Triratna Buddhist Order, known for her deep engagement with the Bodhisattva Ideal and socially engaged Buddhism. She was ordained by Sangharakshita in 1980 and has been actively involved in various Triratna activities, including leading retreats, workshops, and serving as a preceptor. Parami is particularly known for her work in the Spanish-speaking world and her commitment to exploring the intersection of Buddhism and social action.
Priyachakșhu
Priyachakșhu(he/they /them) is a Triratna Order member since 2022, part of the leading team of GSRD group in Brighton Buddhist Centre and LGBTQIA group at London Buddhist Centre. Priyachakșhu is training to be a nurse and works as a carer and believes that the best response to the suffering in the world is to practice the Dharma and follow the Buddha’s path and that can take make forms. Sometimes it might mean sitting quietly with someone in the last hours of their life and praying for them. Priyachakșhu is grateful for the abundance of friendship love, and support this Path…
Sanghasīha
Sanghasīha has been practicing meditation for over 45 years. He was ordained in 2009 and has particular interest in our relationship with the natural world and spiritual practice and has been leading Buddhism and Deep Ecology days and retreats for over ten years. More recently he has trained as a teacher in the Kum Nye tradition of Tibetan yoga and been appointed as a Private Preceptor. Another enthusiasm is long walks in nature and the practice and teaching of Deep Listening. He was born and brought up in Dorset and returns often but today lives in East London with his…
Satyamati
Satyamati has been teaching Yoga for nearly 50 years and regularly leads retreats. She has an engaging, playful and warm style of encouraging everyone to more fully inhabit their bodies, whatever their particular individual needs or abilities are. She is a British Wheel of Yoga teacher and Sivananda teacher (India). As a qualified Sports Massage Therapist, safe alignment is crucial to her teaching, the body, moving, holding and opening, using the Bandhas to support the practice, working from the deep energetic core, with all the senses alive and vibrant. Through the practice we connect deeply to the Elements, to Aliveness and…
Satyasthana
Satyasthana teaches Buddhism, meditation, and yoga at the Croydon Buddhist Centre. He is also the Young Buddhist Co-ordinator – running regular events for people under 35 at the Centre. Satyasthana has recently been ordained to join the Triratna Buddhist Order.
Singhashri
Singhashri (she/her and they/them) is a queer, Chilean-American-British dharma teacher, writer, and somatic practitioner. They teach an embodied and relational approach to mindfulness and compassion as a means to awakening to love, beauty, and truth, and have committed their life to supporting collective liberation for all. In 2024 they founded Radical Embrace CIC, a community-interest company providing embodied and relational healing and transformation at the intersection of dharma, somatics, and social and environmental justice. Singhashri weaves spirituality, embodiment, and deep care for each other and the planet into their writing, teaching, and one-to-one client work. They teach at various retreat…
Sinhacandra
I’ve been interested in ritual and myth for a long time and a shrine builder from day 1 of my involvement with the movement in 1984. I have been using the arts for their own sake as well as a way of working with (difficult) mental states. The media I work in the most are: stained glass and mosaics, drawing and puppet making.
Subhadassi
Subhadassi is a retreat leader and writer with more than two decades’ experience of leading retreats, and running writing workshops.
Surata
Surata brings to his teaching 50 years’ experience of both yoga and Buddhism. His teaching combines a depth of experience with humour and playfulness which he brings to his classes. His particular mindful and gentle style of yoga is influenced by the teaching of Vanda Scaravelli, as he writes: “Experimenting with our body from stillness in meditation, slowly at first, so as to catch the quality of our own resting, breathing and subtle moving, we will sense for habitual patterns and look for appropriate alternatives. If we can allow the breath to lead and carry us into movement, perhaps we…
Suryadaya
My name is Suryadaya, which means Kindness like Sunshine and I have been practising, writing and teaching people about Buddhism for many years. These days, my greatest interest is in communicating the Dharma (the teachings of the Buddha) in a way that is relevant, helpful and inspiring, so as to assist us all in meeting the challenges in our lives.
Tejananda
Tejananda has been practising meditation and dharma since the mid-70s. He was ordained by Sangharakshita in 1980 after which he participated in the setting-up of the FWBO Bristol centre and was centre chair for six years. After several years working for the Karuna Trust in Oxford, he joined the team at Vajraloka in 1995. His book,’The Buddhist Path to Awakening’ was published by Windhorse around that time. Since then he has been leading and supporting retreats at Vajraloka and at other retreat centres in the UK and worldwide. Although no longer living at Vajraloka, he remains part of the wider Vajraloka mandala and…
Vajradarshini
Vajradarshini is known for her down to earth approach to Dharma practice. She draws widely on the Buddhist tradition and on contemporary art and culture, weaving them together to create engaging and enjoyable retreats. You can expect a week of reflection and meditation, with some long periods of silence. For more information on Vajradarshini: www.redladderstudio.com
Vajradevi
Vajradevi has been meditating for over 30 years and was ordained in 1995. She regularly leads meditation workshops and retreats based around the Satipatthana Sutta and has explored approaches to awareness with the Burmese teacher, Sayadaw U Tejaniya and with Joseph Goldstein.
Vajragupta
Vajragupta is the author of five books on Buddhism, including Wild Awake: Alone, Offline and Aware in Nature. He has taught meditation and Buddhism for over twenty-five years. After four years where he lived a ”homeless’ life, spending time at different Buddhist Centres around the world, he is now the Chair of the Croydon Buddhist Centre.
Vessantara
Vessantara has been ordained since 1974, and is one of the best-known meditation teachers in Triratna. He has taught around the world, and led hundreds of retreats. He has spent years in personal meditation retreat, including a 3-year retreat in France. He is the author of several books, including The Breath and The Heart in Windhorse Publications’ series on The Art of Meditation. This is the only retreat for non-Order members that he will be leading this year.
Vidyadasa
Vidyadasa is a Buddhist yoga and embodiment teacher who brings over three decades of meditation, movement, and mindfulness practice into his teaching. Rooted in the Triratna Buddhist tradition, he weaves together Hatha yoga, somatic awareness, embodiment / life coaching and creative inquiry to support people in connecting more deeply with their bodies, values, and inner wisdom. Based near Brighton, UK, he offers classes, workshops, retreats and online sessions that foster presence, compassion, and personal transformation.
Vijayamala
Vijayamala has been exploring how to keep meditation alive and relevant for more than 45 years and teaches full time within Triratna since coming back from a 3 year retreat, 14 years ago. She will be drawing on her experience, study and themes that have emerged from her time on long retreat and beyond.
Viryadeva
Viryadeva first encountered Buddhism in 2008, at the age of 21, and has been teaching meditation since 2014. In his work as a scholar and researcher, he has also taught and lectured on Buddhism, mindfulness and related topics at the University of Cambridge, King’s College London and the Royal Academy of Art. Since 2020, he has been working full-time for the Croydon Buddhist centre, and is currently their Men’s Mitra Convenor.
Vishvantara
Vishvantara (Julia Lewis) has been reading and writing poetry since childhood and her debut pamphlet Cursive was published by Happenstance Press in 2015. She has twice been commended in the National Poetry Competition, and won first prize in the Poetry London competition. She has been a Hawthornden Literary Fellow. She lives in a Buddhist community and teaches at the London Buddhist Centre. She earns an enjoyable living as a piano teacher.