TCVC retreats are led by senior teachers in the Theravada Buddhist tradition. These teachers have undergone extensive training under respected teachers in their tradition and continue to pass on the wisdom of this lineage at our retreats. Though held in a common tradition, each teacher brings their own unique offering as they connect with retreatants from their own experiences and places of wisdom. TCVC is grateful for their many years of teaching our retreats.
TCVC Teachers
Steve Armstrong
Steve Armstrong has studied the dhamma and practiced insight meditation since 1975. He has served for many years at the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts as Executive Director, Board member and senior teacher. As a monk in Burma under the guidance of Sayadaw U Pandita he undertook intensive, silent practice of insight and lovingkindness meditations for 5 years and in Australia, he studied the Buddhist psychology (abhidhamma) with Sayadaw U Zagara. He continues his practice under the guidance of Sayadaw U Tejaniya at the Shwe Oo Min Meditation Center in Rangoon. Steve is a co-founding teacher of the Vipassana Metta Foundation’s dhamma sanctuary on Maui. He has been leading meditation retreats internationally since 1990 and encourages spiritual development through cultivating insightful awareness and liberating understanding of the core teachings of the Buddha in all life activities.
Rebecca Bradshaw
Rebecca Bradshaw is a Buddhist Insight Meditation teacher living in the hills of Western Massachusetts with her husband and two cats. She has been practicing Buddhist Vipassana meditation since 1983 in the United States and Myanmar (Burma) and teaching since 1993. She completed her dharma teacher training at Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, where she is part of the three-month retreat teacher team and leads retreats for young adults. She also teaches at other locations in the United States and abroad, including Spanish language retreats. Rebecca has a Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology and is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC). Rebecca’s teaching focuses on down-to-earth embodied practice flavored with grounded aliveness from years of qi gong practice. Her meditation teaching style is infused with large doses of loving kindness and compassion; we need these in order to have the strength and flexibility to touch and be touched deeply by life. The woods, lakes, animals, and plants are also her teachers and their lessons are embedded in all that she shares. Her book, Down to Earth Dharma, is due to be published by Shambhala Publications in the fall of 2024. Her hope is that we can unbind our hearts and minds, learn to connect deeply with life, and be of service to our communities and our planet during these challenging times. For more information, please see her webpage at www.rebeccabradshaw.org.
Chas DiCapua
Chas DiCapua has been practicing Buddhist meditation for almost 30 years. He has trained with Burmese meditation masters, western monastics of the Thai Forest tradition and senior western vipassana teachers. He has spent over two years in silent, intensive retreat.
Chas has served as IMS’s Resident Teacher at IMS since 2003. Chas is a graduate of the four year joint Insight Meditation Society / Spirit Rock Teacher Training Program. He teaches retreats at IMS and at various centers and sanghas throughout the country.
As a way to address the wide spread suffering that is endemic in many partnered relationships, Chas explores how the dharma can be practiced in relationship, including how the masculine and feminine energies manifest in relationship, in spiritual practice, and in the world.
Bonnie Duran
Bonnie Duran met the Dharma in 1982 when she sat a month at Kopan Monastery in Nepal and learned Vipassana in Bodh Gaya India. Since then, she has taken teachings from many western teachers including Joseph Goldstein and Marcia Rose, as well as Tibetan teachers, Venerable Tsoknyi Rinpoche and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Bonnie is a graduate of the SRMC/IMS Community Dharma Leader training program and will complete the retreat teacher-training program in 2016. She teaches at the Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and helps organize the People of Color and Allies Sangha that meet weekly in Seattle. She is a contributor to Hilda Guitierrez Baldoquin’s book, Dharma, Color and Culture: New Voices in Western Buddhism and has written for the Turning Wheel. Dr. Duran is an associate professor in the Schools of Social Work and Public Health at the University of Washington, is director of the Center for Indigenous Health Research, and is involved in Native American spiritual practices and traditions.
Deborah Helzer
Deborah Helzer has been meditating since 1991, and has practiced and studied both Western and Asian traditions. She spent a year as a Theravadan nun in Burma, and her teaching style reflects the influence of the late Burmese master Mahasi Sayadaw and his emphasis on clear, non-judgmental awareness. Deborah has been mentored in her teaching by Joseph Goldstein and other senior Vipassana teachers connected with the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA. She has been teaching locally and assisting at retreats around the country since 2002. For more information, please see her webpage at www.deborahhelzer.com.
Kamala Masters
Kamala Masters is one of the founders and teachers of the Vipassana Metta Foundation on Maui. She teaches retreats in the Theravada tradition at venues worldwide, including being a Guiding Teacher at the Insight Meditation Society at Barre, Massachusetts. Practicing since 1975, her teachers have been the late Anagarika Munindra of India and the late Sayadaw U Pandita of Burma, and Sayadaw U Tejaniya of Burma with whom she continues to practice. Kamala has a commitment to carrying and offering the purity of the teachings of the Buddha in a way that touches our common sense and compassion as human beings, and allows the natural inner growth of wisdom. She lives on Maui where she raised four children, and is now blessed with seven grandchildren. Kamala practiced both insight and loving kindness meditations intensively under the guidance and preceptorship of Sayadaw U Pandita, in the USA, Australia and in Burma as a nun and a lay woman.
Tara Mulay
Tara Mulay teaches and mentors Insight Meditation practitioners to refine their mindfulness practice, both on the meditation cushion and in daily life. Her dharma offerings stem from the lineage of Mahasi Sayadaw, and she has gratefully drawn influence from many other teachers within and outside of the Mahasi lineage, including Howard Cohn, Kamala Masters, Joseph Goldstein, and Sayadaw U Tejaniya. Tara practiced criminal defense law in California for over 20 years. She was a leader of Mission Dharma in San Francisco, and in 2016 she co-founded the San Francisco Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Insight Sangha. In 2021, she was authorized to teach by Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts.
Tara felt initially drawn to dharma practice upon encountering the Buddha’s teachings rejecting caste as a measure of worth and of capacity for awakening. She believes classical Buddhist practices, designed to cultivate compassion, non-greed, non-hatred, and non-delusion, are uniquely potent vehicles for empowering people in marginalized communities and effecting social change. For more information visit Taramulay.com.
Annie Nugent
Annie Nugent has been practicing meditation since 1979 and attended her first retreat with Joseph Goldstein when he visited South Africa in the early 1980’s. Annie served as an IMS Resident Teacher from 1999 to 2003, began teaching at the Forest Refuge in 2004, and has been a long-term teacher for the annual Three-Month-Retreat. Her teaching style aims to reveal how all aspects of our lives can help us come to a clear and direct understanding of the Truth.
Vance Pryor
Vance Pryor, PsyD, began insight meditation in 1998. He has been deeply influenced by the teachings of Sayadaw U Pandita and Sayadaw U Tejaniya. His training to become a teacher has been supported by the mentorship of Steve Armstrong and Kamala Masters. He is a recent graduate of the Insight Meditation Society’s 2017-2021 Teacher Training Program.