Jill Shepherd

Jill Shepherd is an insight meditation teacher based in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. Her practice began in Thailand in 1999, and in the years since she has lived at meditation centres and monasteries in Thailand, Australia, England and the United States, including a seven-year stint on the staff of the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts, where she sat long retreats, studied the Buddhist texts and taught a weekly class in a nearby prison. She trained as a teacher in the joint IMS and Spirit Rock programme led by Joseph Goldstein and Gil Fronsdal, finishing in 2016.

Today she divides her year mainly between New Zealand, Australia and the US. She leads silent vipassana and brahmavihara retreats, from nine days to several weeks, and guides personal retreats at the Forest Refuge in Barre. At home she is guiding teacher of the Auckland Insight Meditation community, with Thursday evening talks in Westmere, and every Monday morning she hosts a short online sitting called Start Your Week Well. She also teaches Insight Dialogue, Gregory Kramer's relational form of meditation practised in pairs and small groups, and offers one-to-one meetings on a dana basis.