Principal Teachers 🌳

“Lives of great men all remind us,
We can make our lives sublime;
And, departing, leave behind us,
Footprints on the sands of time.

Footprints that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main;
Some forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing may take heart again.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow¹

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I owe countless regards to the Teachers who have shown me roadmaps that I have endeavoured to apply, sometimes successfully, otherwise requiring life’s great stick of discipline to remind myself of its value.

Below are just some of these Teachers.

Meditation teacher since May 2022 (identity withheld for privacy) who studied under:

• Kyabjé Dodrupchen Rinpoche² - was one of the most important masters in the Nyingma and Dzogchen traditions. He worked in Eastern Tibet prior to his escape in 1957, there afterwards establishing monastries in Bhutan, India and Nepal.

• The Most Venerable Bhaddanta Āciṇṇa Mahāthēra³ - a Burmese monk, meditation teacher and abbot of the Pa-Auk Forest Monastery, which has extended into a network representing the largest of its kind in Myanmar.

• Pak Merta Ada.⁴ - founder of Bali Usada Health Meditation. He has spent considerable effort on bridging the gap from ancient teachings to modern application particularly in relation to anxiety and depression.

Therapist since February 2021 (identity withheld for privacy) who studied the work of or learnt under:

• Dr Peter Levine⁵ - a psychotraumatologist, biophysicist and psychologist. He is the developer of Somatic Experiencing® and director of The Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute. He has spent 35 years studying stress and trauma, including consulting for NASA on the development of the space shuttle project. Peter has received the Life Time Achievement Award from the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy.

• Dr Gabor Maté⁶ - a physician, specialising in childhood development, stress, addiction and trauma. He is the developer of Compassionate Inquiry, now studied by therapists around the world. A best-selling author and recipient of the Order of Canada, the highest civilian distinction, for his medical work.

• Amazonian shaman - my therapist’s first Teacher who “didn't speak the same verbal language, he didn’t need to, he understood the universal body language”

• Stephen Jenkinson⁷ - headed up Canada’s largest home-based palliative care program and in working with hundreds of dying people and their families, committed to setting up the Orphan Wisdom School in order to address the evident gap in our ability to meet our end of life. He has a master’s degree from Harvard University and the University of Toronto and is the author of several books.

• Carl Jung⁸ - founder of the School of Analytical Psychology. He was a trained psychiatrist, psychotherapist, psychologist and prolific writer. A hugely influential figure for modern interpretations of consciousness.

Meditation teacher from December 2013 to 2023 was Tim Brown⁹ who studied under:

• Thom Knoles¹⁰ - continuing an “unbroken line” of Vedic practitioners stretching back millennia. Thom trained under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who was trained by Swami Brahmananda Saraswati¹¹

In addition to being an understudy of the aforementioned, a broad number of other notable healers, doctors and scientists have been of substantial influence.

• Shelly Towns¹² - a somatic healer with over 20 years of hands-on experience guiding thousands of people through a body-focused energetic resolution.

• Dr Michael Glock¹³ - a psychologist with 30 years of experience who is renowned for his innovative approach to understanding and harnessing emotions. Dr Glock, in particular, explores the transformative potential of imagination in supporting recovery.

• Dr Anna Machin¹⁴ - evolutionary anthropologist at Oxford University and widely regarded educator on the father-child relationship.

• Dr Rianne Kok¹⁵ - clinical child and family studies researcher, specializing in understanding behavioural outcomes from early social origins.

• Dr Stephen Porges¹⁶ - a psychologist and founder of the Polyvagal Theory that has widened the discussion of the role of the vagus nerve, particularly in relation to therapeutic outcomes, by focusing on a return to bodily safety as a pre-requisite.

• Dr Bessel van der Kolk¹⁷ - a psychiatrist and best-selling author specialising in post-traumatic stress. Publishing more than 150 peer-reviewed articles and four books, Van der Kolk is president of the Trauma Research Foundation and professor of psychiatry at Boston University.

• Dr Karyn Frick¹⁸ - professor and neuroscience major director, Frick is at the forefront of understanding the relationship between estrogen and hippocampal function, revealing insights that relate to neuroplasticity opportunities in PTSD.

• Dr Ruth Feldman¹⁹ - professor of developmental social neuroscience, and founder of the biobehavioral synchrony model that systematically describes how close relationships (in particular parent-child) influence neurobiology.

• Mark Wolynn²⁰ - a world leader in inherited family trauma, and creator of the Core Language Approach developed over 25 years of trauma therapy. A unique approach that supports individual empowerment in the face of psychological imbalance.

1. https://archive.org/details/apsalmlife00peirgoog

2. https://www.rigpa.org/posts-rigpa-news/remembering-dodrupchen-rinpoche

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhaddanta_Āciṇṇa

4. https://baliusada.com/en/profil/pak-merta-ada/

5. https://www.somaticexperiencing.com/about-peter

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabor_Mat%C3%A9

7. https://orphanwisdom.com/about/

8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung

9. https://www.smh.com.au/culture/celebrity/the-man-who-taught-inner-peace-to-sydney-s-a-list-dies-20230627-p5djsc.html

10. https://thomknoles.com/

11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmananda_Saraswati

12. https://energeticfreedom.com.au/about/

13. https://fox2now.com/business/press-releases/ein-presswire/636872228/renowned-depth-psychologist-dr-michael-glock-to-present-groundbreaking-paper-at-international-conference-on-emotions/

14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Machin

15. https://riannekok.com/

16. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Porges

17. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessel_van_der_Kolk

18. https://uwm.edu/psychology/people/frick-karyn/

19. https://ruthfeldmanlab.com/people/

20. https://markwolynn.com/mark-wolynn/