Tara Mulay

Tara Mulay teaches insight meditation in the Burmese Mahasi Sayadaw lineage, with further influence from teachers such as Howard Cohn, Kamala Masters, Joseph Goldstein, Gil Fronsdal and Sayadaw U Tejaniya. She began practising in 2003 and has sat long retreats in the United States and Myanmar. For more than two decades before teaching she worked as a criminal defence lawyer in California, where she was among the leaders of the Mission Dharma group and, in 2016, helped start an insight sangha there for people of colour.

She completed the Insight Meditation Society's 2017–2021 teacher training and now teaches from Western Massachusetts, leading residential retreats at IMS, the Forest Refuge and other centres, along with online programmes. Her Indian heritage shaped her path: she was first drawn to the dharma by the Buddha's refusal to treat caste as a measure of a person's worth. Her teaching stresses a relaxed, receptive kind of mindfulness joined with kindness, and she sees classical practice as a source of strength for marginalised communities. With Devin Berry she runs Heartstream Sangha, a monthly online gathering, and she offers one-to-one practice mentoring on a dana basis.