Teachers and Staff
Ethan Nichtern, Founder, Senior Teacher, Director of Meditation Teacher Training Program
Ethan founded The Interdependence Project in 2005. In the summer of 2010, Ethan was empowered by his teacher, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, as a Shastri, a senior teacher in the Shambhala tradition, representing the New York region. Ethan teaches meditation and Buddhist psychology classes and retreats in New York City and throughout the United States. He is the author of The Road Home: A Contemporary Exploration of the Buddhist Path, the novella/poetry collection Your Emoticons Won't Save You, and One City: A Declaration of Interdependence.
Kimberly Brown, Executive Director & Teacher
Kimberly has degrees in physics and literature, and trained as a psychodynamic psychotherapist. She worked at a marketing consultancy for more than a decade before joining The Interdependence Project.A graduate of the first year-long IDP Meditation Teacher Training Program, Kimberly studies Tibetan and American Buddhism, and her teachers include Lama Norlha Rinpoche and Sharon Salzberg. Her work and teachings emphasize the ways in which contemplation, wisdom, and ethics are shared among all traditions of awakening. Discover more about Kim and her teaching at her website.
Robby Caplan, Program Coordinator
Robby graduated from Wesleyan University, where he studied religion and played bass in an alternative rock band. In 2012, Robby travelled to Bodh Gaya, India, where he studied and practiced within various Buddhist traditions through Antioch University's Buddhist Studies program. Robby has been practicing Zen since 2011 and graduated from IDP's Yearlong Teacher Training Program in 2015. In addition to his job, he enjoys running, playing bass, listening to records, and riding his motorcycle. He can be reached anytime at robby@theidproject.org
Kate Johnson, Teacher
Kate Johnson works at the intersections of spiritual practice, social action, and creative expression. Currently, she teaches mindful yoga in NYC public schools, Buddhist meditation at The Interdependence Project, and facilitates an embodied approach to organizational and leadership development for social change agents and communities. Kate holds a BFA in Dance from The Alvin Ailey School/Fordham University, and a MA in Performance Studies from NYU. She has trained at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, The Interdependence Project, Laughing Lotus Yoga and The Presencing Institute.
Maho Kawachi, Teacher
A Tokyo-born journalist living in NYC for many years, Maho completed the IDP Meditation Teacher Training in 2011 and continues to study with IDP Founder, Ethan Nichtern. She is aided and hindered in her search for enlightenment by her lovely dog and her equally lovely husband.
Adreanna Limbaugh, Teacher
Adreanna's first encounter with Buddhism was in a high school Philosophy class where the discourses on The Heart Sutra rocked her world in an uncomfortable and exhilarating way. Following a decade of flirtation with meditation, she found her home in the community at The Interdependence Project in 2009, where she continues to study, practice, and play with others who inspire her path. She has taught meditation to sixth- and seventh-graders through The Urban Yoga Foundation and was co-coordinator of Occupy Wall Street's Meditation Working Group in NYC, which brought the daily practice of mindfulness meditation to the volunteers at Zuccotti Park in 2011. When she's not on the cushion, Adreanna is an executive coach for The Institute for Compassionate Leadership, a resident student coach at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and works one-on-one with private clients to reclaim their sufficiency and practice their possibilities at www.DeliciousIntent.com. Adreanna is a graduate of IDP's 2012 IDP Meditation Teacher Training Program, and her favorite color is crimson.
Paul Sireci, Teacher
Paul Sireci began practicing Buddhism and meditation in earnest in 1996. Having been a monastic in the Tibetan tradition for several years in the early 2000s, he has continued his love affair with the path as a lay practitioner and psychotherapist. Paul is inspired by a vision in which the radical truths found in the teachings will create a 21st century Buddhism that is not afraid of engaging issues of power, privilege, and difference. He is passionate about an emerging dharma centered on healing and transforming communities as much as it is already helping people find their native sanity. Paul is a graduate of the IDP Yearlong Meditation Teacher Training Program. In his free time, Paul can usually be found wandering around Chinatown.
Emily Herzlin, Teacher
Emily is a writer and editor with a particular love for memoir, poetry, and playwriting. She received her MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Columbia University in 2012. She has been a student at the Interdependence Project since 2005, and is also a graduate of IDP's Meditation Teacher Training Program. Emily trained to teach Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) at the University of Massachusetts Medical School Center for Mindfulness. She is particularly interested in the role of meditation in the creative process. Emily also leads meditation classes in her neighborhood of Astoria, Queens.
Mona Chopra, Teacher
Mona Chopra, MA, MS, L.Ac., is an acupuncturist, hypnotherapist, therapeutic yoga and meditation instructor whose work is guided by the belief that the capacity to heal is boundless, and the capacity to love without limits is what liberates us. The Buddhist teachings and practices have resonated deeply with Mona, and have helped her wake up to experiencing the magic present in every moment of life - be it one of joy or even of sorrow. Mona is grateful to all her teachers, in the myriad forms they appear. She is a graduate of IDP's year-long Meditation Teacher Training Program. For more information on Mona: www.peopletreewellness.com.
Jessica Rodrigues, Teacher
Jessica's path has focused on the convergence between individual well-being, social justice and planetary health. Her experiences living in different countries and cultures have shaped her view of interdependence and continue to influence her approach to teaching meditation and building community. She is inspired by the potential for meditation and Buddhist teachings to empower everyone to face and transform our suffering and move through life more gracefully with a sense of joy and gratitude. Jessica holds a MS in International Development from Georgetown University, and she is a graduate of IDP's Meditation Teacher Training Program. She regularly practices "meditation for two", otherwise known as Argentine tango.
Dan Cayer, Teacher
Dan is a nationally certified teacher of the Alexander Technique and a meditator in the Shambhala tradition. After a serious injury left Dan unable to work or carry out household tasks like cleaning dishes, he began studying the Alexander Technique. His return to health, as well as his experience dealing with the physical, mental, and emotional aspects of pain, has inspired him to help others. Dan now teaches the Alexander Technique as a method of recovering balance and well-being. He advocates it as a fantastic embodiment of mindfulness and awareness both on and off the cushion.
Meredith Arena, Coordinator, IDP Seattle, Teacher
Meredith is a facilitator, teacher, writer, and sometimes performer. She has curated group exhibitions and regularly organizes large-scale art projects with children. In 2011 she completed the first year-long IDP Meditation Teacher Training Program. She lives in Seattle, WA and is the regional coordinator of IDP Seattle. She has been studying at the IDP since fall of 2008.
Nancy Thompson, Blog Editor
Nancy Thompson is an editor at a regional daily newspaper, which offers infinite opportunities to experience impermanence, emptiness, and suffering. She sees editing as an art, like Ikebana done with words, that involves precision, attentiveness, and serial commas. She is a student of Lama Tsultrim Allione and is a graduate of IDP's first Meditation Teacher Training Program in 2011. She leads a weekly meditation group, writes a Saturday morning post for the IDP blog, and teaches Buddhism overtly and through example as much as possible.
Lineage Mentor, Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara, PhD, is the Abbot of The Village Zendo. A Soto Zen priest and certified Zen teacher, she received dharma transmission in both the Soto and Rinzai lines of Zen Buddhism, through the White Plum Lineage. She also serves as co-spiritual director of the Zen Peacemaker Family, a spiritual, study, and social action association. Enkyo Roshi’s focus is on the expression of Zen through caring, service, and creative response. Her Five Expressions of Zen form the matrix of study at the Village Zendo: Meditation, Study, Communication, Action, and Caring. “Coming back to the live moment is the greatest healing, the greatest compassion” -Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara. More information on Roshi O’Hara.
Lineage Mentor, Sharon Salzberg is cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, Massachusetts. She has been a student of meditation since 1971, guiding meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. Sharon's latest book is Real Happiness At Work: Meditations for Accomplishment, Achievement, and Peace, published by Workman Publishing. She is a weekly columnist for On Being, a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and is also the author of several other books including the New York Times Best Seller, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program (2010), Love Your Enemies (2013), Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience (2002), and Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (1995). For more information please visit: www.SharonSalzberg.com.
Buddhism & Psychology Mentor, Miles Neale, Psy.D. is a licensed psychotherapist in private practice, a Buddhist meditation teacher, and the assistant director of the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science, where he teaches public courses on the Indo-Tibetan tradition and collaborates on state-of-the-art clinical research of meditation. Dr. Neale earned his doctorate in clinical psychology in 2006 from the California Institute for Integral Studies, and has taught meditation programs at several prestigious university hospitals, including Harvard Medical School, Columbia Presbyterian, Cornell Medical College, and Albert Einstein/Montefiore Medical Center.
For more information, visit his website.