FREE ONLINE TALK: TEACHING MINDFULNESS MEDITATION AND THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER

David Nichtern is a senior Buddhist teacher who has been practicing and teaching meditation for over 40 years. He was one of the initial American students of renowned meditation master Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and studied closely with him soon after his arrival in the United States in 1970.

David is also a business consultant with companies creating a variety of offerings integrating meditation in a larger health and well-being context; including Goldman Sachs, Journey Meditation, Creative Live, True Nature Meditation (Tokyo), Balanced Athlete, The Center for Health & Healing, Om Births, and Kobre & Kim law firm among others.

He has been featured in The New York Times, FOX News, Netflix's The Midnight Gospel, Huffington Post, The Buddhist Geeks podcast, Duncan Trussell Family Hour Podcast, You Made it Weird Podcast with Pete Holmes, and many others. David also hosts his own Podcast based on his book Creativity, Spirituality & Making a Buck.

David is the author of the critically acclaimed Awakening From the Daydream: Reimagining The Buddha's Wheel of Life and Creativity, Spirituality & Making a Buck. He mentors individual students both in person and online, and leads meditation teacher training programs around the world.

He is a highly regarded composer, producer and guitarist, as well as the founder of Dharma Moon Records and 5 Points Records. David has recorded and played with Stevie Wonder, Jerry Garcia, Lana Del Rey, Maria Muldaur, Paul Simon and many others. Among his many credits in records, film and TV, he wrote the classic song "Midnight at the Oasis". In recent years he has produced multiple records for and periodically tours with Grammy nominated kirtan performer Krishna Das.

Robert A. F. Thurman is who the NY Times Magazine refers to as “The Dalai Lama’s man in America.”

A scholar, author, former Tibetan Buddhist monk, co-founder with Richard Gere of Tibet House in New York City, a close personal friend of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, and father of five children including the actress, Uma Thurman, he is the Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University. Time magazine named him one of the “25 Most Influential Americans.”

He has lectured all over the world; his charisma and enthusiasm draw packed audiences. Thurman is not only a scholar, but a champion of the preservation of Tibetan culture. In 1987, he and actor Richard Gere founded New York City’s Tibet House, a nonprofit institution devoted to preserving the living culture of Tibet, where he currently serves as president of the board of trustees.