Rebecca Bradshaw

Rebecca Bradshaw has practised vipassana since 1983, in the United States and in Myanmar, and began teaching in 1993 after training at the Insight Meditation Society. Her root lineage is the Mahasi method from Burma; her first teachers were Sayadaw U Pandita, Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg, and above all from Michele McDonald. Later she studied the Thai Forest tradition and the Kwan Yin practices of the Chan lineage with Kittisaro and Thanissara. She is now Guiding Teacher Emeritus of IMS and of Pioneer Valley's Insight Meditation Center in Easthampton, Massachusetts, and holds a master's degree in counselling psychology.

Her teaching is earthy and body-based, coloured by years of qi gong and by plenty of lovingkindness, and she often brings the woods, water and animals into her talks. For many years she has been part of the IMS three-month retreat team, has taught retreats for young adults, and has led retreats in Spanish. Her book Down to Earth Dharma (Shambhala, 2024) looks at the Buddha's teaching through what she calls a receptive or feminine paradigm, balancing an inherited emphasis on effort and striving. She teaches residential retreats at IMS and the Forest Refuge and at centres in Minnesota, Ohio and New York, gives online talks, and has around 250 recorded talks on Dharma Seed.