Awareness has a heart and it’s a human heart – that feels, senses and engages with life in the world. Through awareness, the world comes into being. Are we present for this opportunity to engage with our experience as it displays itself in each moment in a wonderous and mysterious way?
About Sharda
I began practicing meditation in 1976 as a last resort to deal with my perennial unhappiness. Transcendental Meditation was suggested to me as a way to help and I practiced this form of meditation with great discipline, gaining some favorable results for two years. When I moved to San Francisco in 1978 to study holistic healing, I met James Baraz who was offering one of his first classes in Vipassana meditation. Once I stepped onto the Buddha’s path, something clicked and I became a dedicated practitioner. I joined James at his San Franicsco sitting group when there were just three of us sitting in these early days! Then I began sitting many long retreats at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts under the guidance of Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield. I joined their retreats when they came to California to teach. Sometimes, I also helped James organize their retreats and served as a cook. I joined Wes Nisker and Barbara Gates as the graphic designer for the Inquiring Mind, the vipassana journal, when it was first launched in 1983.
As retreats became more popular and there were so few teachers, Jack and Joseph invited some of the experienced students to assist on their retreats. I was asked to help and shortly afterwards, in 1985, I was invited to join Jack’s first teacher training, along with James Baraz, Sylvia Bornstein, Howie Cohn and Anna Douglas. As part of our training, Howie and I started the first San Francisco meditation group in my living room in San Francisco. But soon, in 1987, I left the Bay Area and moved to Totnes, Devon, England to join Christopher Titmuss as a teaching partner. The two of us taught together for the next 15 years. I also lived at Sharpham, a Buddhist community nearby and I became involved at Gaia House Meditation Centre, near Newton Abbot, as one of their teachers.
This was a significant time of learning and growth for me. Christopher and I spent every winter in India teaching a 3 week silent retreat at the Thai Temple, in Bodh Gaya, India where the Buddha was enlightened. I also had the good fortune of meeting H.W.L. Poonja in 1990 in Lucknow, India and spent time with him off and on until his death in 1997. This experience was to be the turning point on my spiritual path and Poonja’s teachings (in the lineage of Ramana Maharshi) continue to serve as the guiding light of my dharma vision. During these years, I also was fortunate to receive teachings from many great Tibetan teachers, including Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche and Nyshol Kempo Rinpoche.
In 2002, I returned to the San Francisco Bay Area to live near Spirit Rock Meditation Center and to become a member of the Teacher's Council. I have been a Board member and also one of the Governing Teachers. In 1993, Dana Anjali and I founded the Regina Insight Meditation Community in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada where I am the guiding teacher. Since 1991, I have been a guiding teacher in New Zealand visiting with different Vipassana communities and teaching at the Te Moata Retreat Centre each year.
The other great influence since moving back to California has been my association with A. H. Almaas and Karen Johnson in the Diamond Approach School beginning in 2002. This teaching has allowed me to deeply integrate my understanding of Buddhist principles along with learning how to function fully in the world as a whole person. The teachings of Burmese teacher, Sayadaw U Tejaniya, with his emphasis on cultivating wisdom-awareness have deeply influenced my understanding. And I practiced with Tsoknyi Rinpoche for many years.
My intention for my practice is to live an awakened life – a life that expresses itself with wisdom and compassion, passion for the truth, and curiosity and love for the adventure. My intention is to stay true to this understanding and support all those with whom I come into contact so we can increase and strengthen our potential to awaken together through our skillful actions and ultimately, to make a difference in this world.