Matthew Brensilver

Matthew Brensilver teaches insight meditation in the Theravada tradition, mostly through silent retreats on the US West Coast and online. He came to the dharma through teachers such as Gil Fronsdal, Shinzen Young, Ajahn Sucitto and Michele McDonald, and for over ten years he was one of the core teachers at Against the Stream in Los Angeles. Before teaching full time he trained and worked as a social worker and earned a doctorate in social work at USC, then spent years in university research and lecturing at UCLA's mindfulness centre, where he explored how meditation, science and psychology meet. He later directed programmes for Mindful Schools.

Today he leads retreats at the Insight Retreat Center in Santa Cruz, at Spirit Rock and at IMS in Barre, and offers a regular evening group for Insight Meditation Center that is streamed on YouTube. His talks are frank, warm and often funny, and keep returning to how mindfulness ripens into love and how wisdom and kindness depend on each other. With Oren Jay Sofer and JoAnna Hardy he co-wrote two books on bringing mindfulness to teenagers, and he sits on the boards of Spirit Rock and Insight Meditation Center.