IMS Online Learning Center

Guy Armstrong has practiced insight meditation for over 40 years, including training as a Buddhist monk in Thailand with Ajahn Buddhadasa. He began teaching in 1984 and has led retreats worldwide. He is an IMS guiding teacher and author of Emptiness: A Practical Guide for Meditators.

Sally Armstrong began practicing vipassana meditation in India in 1981 and started teaching in 1996. She is a member of Spirit Rock Teacher’s Council. and has served as a co-guiding teacher at Spirit Rock. She developed and led Spirit Rock’s Dedicated Practitioners Program for many years, and also created the Advanced Practitioner Program. She has a keen interest in supporting students who want to deepen their practice and understanding, and regularly teaches the long retreats at Spirit Rock and IMS.

Jaya Rudgard began meditating in the 1980s and lived as a nun in the Thai Forest Tradition in the UK for eight years with Ajahn Sumedho. She lives in Oxford England and teaches mindfulness, meditation and dharma in the local community and at retreats internationally. She also studies and teaches qigong.

Yuka Nakamura has practiced Buddhist meditation since 1993 in the Theravada, Dzogchen and Zen traditions. She has a PhD in Developmental Psychology, and is a certified MBSR teacher. Based in Switzerland, she was trained as a Buddhist meditation teacher by Fred von Allmen and teaches at Beatenberg (Switzerland), Gaia House (UK), Insight Meditation Society (Barre, MA), and other places. She is co-founder and teacher at the CFM Zentrum für Achtsamkeit in Zurich and faculty member for the Bodhi College teacher training program. Living in Switzerland, she teaches meditation and MBSR (mindfulness-based stress reduction).

Assistant

Kristina Baré is an insight meditation teacher, therapist, and Somatic Experiencing practitioner. She has trained primarily in the Burmese lineages of Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw and Ven. Pa Auk Sayadaw.  She enjoys supporting students deepening samadhi, loving-kindness and insight. Opening the door to an expansion of the heart and to liberating wisdom. In support of the Buddha’s teachings, Kristina also draws on knowledge from western psychology and Somatic Experiencing. She invites a kind, patient, and embodied approach as a base for samadhi, loving-kindness and insight meditation practices.

Online Teachers

Kodo Conlin practices in both the Theravada and Zen traditions, ordaining as a Soto Zen priest in 2015. A participant in the 2021-2025 Insight Meditation Center Dharma Teacher Training, Kodo has extensive experience in Dharma community life, living nine of the last ten years in temples, monasteries, and centers. His passion for meditation practice has led to his spending a year, cumulatively, in silent retreat. Currently serving as co-Managing Director at Insight Retreat Center in Northern California, Kodo also guides Young Urban Zen in San Francisco. Kodo's teaching emphasizes a joyful, comprehensive freedom of the heart—liberation—available through the Buddhist path.

Mei Elliott is a Dharma teacher in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, who practices at the intersection between Zen and Vipassana. Mei began training as a Zen monk at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in 2014, and has spent eight years living at Zen temples and monasteries. During this time she served as the director of San Francisco Zen Center and the guiding instructor for Young Urban Zen. Mei was authorized to teach by James Baraz and is currently a participant in Insight Meditation Center’s Dharma Teacher Training. She now resides at Insight Retreat Center where she serves as 

Monica Antunes has been practicing Buddhist meditation in Burma and the West since 2008. She was invited to teach in 2017 under the guidance of Guy Armstrong and teaches in the US, in Europe and in Africa. She is training in NeuroSystemics, a bio-psychosocial approach to individual, group and community resilience.  Monica was born and raised in Mozambique.