Hugh Byrne
CML Guiding Teacher
As a teacher and social activist, Hugh works to apply the wisdom and compassion of Buddhist teachings to the social, political, economic, and environmental concerns of our time. He’s practiced Buddhist meditation since 1990 and has taught meditation since 2000. He has led training for refugee aid workers in the Middle East and Africa and taught meditation in the U.S. Congress, in non-profit organizations, workplaces, and communities.
Hugh is trained in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Somatic Experiencing, a mind-body approach to healing trauma. He is the author of two books, The Here-and-Now Habit (2016) and Habit Swap (2020) and has a law degree from London University and a Ph.D. in political science from UCLA. He teaches classes, retreats, and workshops in the U.S. and internationally.
Visit Hugh’s websites: www.hugh-byrne.com, www.mindfulnesstraining.org, https://insighttimer.com/hughbyrne
Regina Flanigan
CML Guiding Teacher
Regina has deeply explored human healing and awakening for more than 25 years.
After graduating from John Hopkins University in 2001 with a master's in counseling, she began integrating Western psychological approaches with Eastern contemplative traditions. She took her first mindfulness class in the late 1990s, then studied and practiced the awakening traditions of Buddhist Insight Meditation and the direct or nondual path.
Regina graduated from the first Mindfulness Teacher Training program (MMTCP) offered by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach in 2017, Her mentor was IMCW teacher Hugh Byrne, and they have been teaching, learning, and collaborating at the Center for Mindful Living ever since.
In 2022, she completed a six-month Dhamma teacher training course titled “Approach to Nibanna” with Dhammadipa. She is inspired by many teachers, including students of Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Dhammadipa, Gil Fronsdal, Joe Goldstein and nondual teachers Rupert Spira and Adyashanti.
Regina has been leading meditation classes weekly for the last 6 years, and her life’s work continues to be the alleviation of mental, emotional, and relational suffering.
To contact Regina, visit reginaflanigan.com.
Caroline Altmann
Caroline began practicing lovingkindness meditation 25 years ago, leading to a lifelong journey of silent retreats and Buddhist studies. She trained with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield’s Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program completed in 2021. Raised in Brazil, Europe, and Japan, she speaks several languages imperfectly. Shaped by personal experiences with trauma, she has a special interest in healing and resilience.
Caroline holds a BA in Fine Arts from Tufts, an MBA from Columbia, and experience in international investment. She also trained as an Adlerian parenting teacher and co-hosts a non-profit NVC summer camp. Passionate about teaching and coaching, Caroline welcomes all to her weekly lovingkindness, mindfulness, and somatic sessions. In her free time, she enjoys dancing, cooking, photography, biking, and hiking with her family.
Michele Bledsoe
Michele is a certified Mindfulness Meditation Teacher who trained with renowned teachers Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield and is deeply influenced by her primary mentor, James Baraz. Her teaching focuses on helping people break free from limiting patterns by meeting present-moment emotions with the two wings of mindfulness: compassion and wisdom. She has completed additional training in Somatic Self-Compassion with Kristy Arbon, Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness with David Treleaven, and IFS/Partswork Coaching.
Michele also has a growing interest in relational dharma and Insight Dialogue, practices that bring mindfulness into interpersonal connection. Her approach invites students to reconnect with the truth of who they are today, fostering healing and transformation. Outside of teaching, Michele’s love of animals is reflected in her pet-inspired books, The Doggy Bone Cookbook and The Kitty Treats Cookbook.
Marina Colby “Seisui”
Marina has been practicing meditation for two decades and is a 2021 graduate of the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield. Marina currently practices with the Upaya Zen Center sangha and founding abbot Roshi Joan Halifax from whom she received jukai and the dharma name, Seisui (“clear water”).
She participated in a two-year course on socially-engaged Buddhism at Upaya where her project focused on socially and environmentally conscious policymaking which aligns with her professional work in international development as a labor rights advocate.
Marina finds inspiration in investigating, practicing, and sharing Buddhist teachings with others to cultivate more kindness and compassion in the world, for all beings, without exception. She guides meditation class most Saturday mornings and some Sundays at the Center for Mindful Living.
Sam Cooper
Sam Cooper is a licensed social worker, psychotherapist, activist, and multi-platform artist based in Montgomery County, Maryland's Agricultural Reserve. With over 20 years of experience in dharma philosophy and meditation, he has trained in vipassana, zen, vajrayana, and yoga contexts.
Sam's dharma orientation centers around conscious lifestyle design and eco-spirituality, and is dedicated to personal and collective liberation equally. He believes that inherent freedom and deep wisdom exist within the hearts of all beings, not just behind paywalls or monastery walls. As a lifelong artist and musician, Sam brings a commitment to creativity and play into spiritual practice and everyday life.
Sam has been teaching since 2018, and graduated from Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach's Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program in 2023.
Ashleigh Enriquez
Ashleigh is a Mindfulness Teacher who has taught meditation to individuals, families, kids, and young adults for over 10 years. She was introduced to the practice by her best friend at the age of 6. Through college, she used mindfulness as stress management but shortly after college, it became not only a practice but a lifestyle.
She’s participated in retreats, sanghas, spiritual friends groups, and a Yearlong Bringing Mindfulness to Life class and is a graduate of the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program (MMTCP) with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield.
Ashleigh is a Certified Health Education Specialist and RYT 200 Yoga Teacher with a Masters in Health Promotion Management from American University. This combined with her certifications as an autism specialist, and science and special education k-12 teacher brings a unique wellness and practical life focus to her teaching.
In addition to the Tuesday Midday class for CML, she leads IMCW's Young Adult Sangha and offers retreats, classes, and private mindfulness-based wellness coaching.
Catherine Flanagan
Catherine Flanagan graduated from the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program taught by Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield. She offers classes and training to individuals and organizations. Working with the nonprofit Insight on the Inside, she teaches mindfulness meditation to incarcerated individuals, returning citizens, and others in marginalized communities. Her teaching explores letting go of attachments, moods, unhelpful motivations, and tensions to arrive at presence. From there self-compassion, compassion, and other root conditions of happiness can be cultivated.
Sangha (spiritual community) is an abiding joy and support for Catherine. She serves on IMCW’s mentorship committee, facilitates discussion following Tara Brach’s Wednesday Night Meditation classes, offers a weekly Tuesday evening meditation class, and teaches periodically on Thursday and Saturday mornings.
A public interest attorney, Catherine’s career has included protecting the rights of domestic violence survivors and enforcing federal voting and environmental laws. She engages in political activism to promote civil rights, economic justice and a sustainable planet.
Bettina Kanitz
Bettina has been practicing vipassana meditation for over 10 years and is a 2021 Graduate of the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training Program with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield.
Bettina is a long-standing licensed clinical psychologist and has a private psychotherapy practice in Alexandria, VA. She effectively and compassionately serves diverse people from all walks of life. She is passionate about integrating mindfulness, Buddhism, Buddhist Psychology, as well as other philosophies and schools of spiritual thought into her work and life.
Bettina guides meditation classes on select Wednesday mornings and also facilitates a monthly Sangha called “My Favorite Things,” wherein she guides meditation practice and offers a talk on various topics drawn from Mindfulness, Buddhism, Spirituality, and Psychology, as well as the intersection of any of the above.
Mark McKay
Mark has been practicing meditation in various traditions for over 30 years. He is fascinated by the integration of meditative experience into daily living through the dharma lenses of creativity, intersectional spirituality, and Zen.
Mark studied religion and literature at Colgate University and Chicago Theological Seminary and graduated from Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield’s Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program (MMTCP) in 2023.
Mark teaches Mindfulness of Sound with CML on Thursdays.
Peggy O’Kane
Peggy O’Kane has been meditating for seventeen years. She began using meditation as a stress management tool, and quickly came to understand its profound usefulness for self-knowledge, awareness and cultivating peace and contentment. She is eager to share the techniques of meditation and the teachings of the dharma with all who are interested.
In 2013 Peggy graduated from The Meditation Teacher Training Institute’s two-year program with teachers Tara Brach, Jonathan Foust, Hugh Byrne and Pat Coffey. She guides Thursday morning meditation at CML.
Silvia Garcia Pereira
Silvia has been teaching the Buddha Dharma since 2014 and has been leading the Friday morning meditations at the Center for Mindful living since 2013.
Her practice and teaching of the dharma are influenced by spending time on retreats and studying with Joseph Goldstein, Leigh Brasington, Gil Fronsdal, Guy Armstrong, and Ruth King among others.
By profession, Silvia holds an MFA from NYU and works as a video producer for Montgomery County Public Schools.
Niel Rosen
Niel Rosen is a philosopher by training and disposition. A personal crisis led him to meditation and he’s been practicing at CML ever since. He usually offers body scans to cultivate present-moment awareness, and as a gratitude practice.
Niel completed the Foundations course at the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care with Koshin Paley Ellison and Robert Chodo Campbell, a Year of Living Mindfully with Jonathan Foust, and a 10-week MBSR Practicum at the Myrna Brind Center for Mindfulness in Philadelphia. Niel also trained in Socially Engaged Buddhism at Upaya Zen Center, and is now part of an intimate online zen study group. The treasure of sangha—community—is the core of these experiences. Currently, Niel works as a public defender in Maryland, representing individuals facing involuntary psychiatric hospitalization.
Bob Stout
Bob was awakened to the wonders of mindfulness later in life when he attended his first silent meditation retreat with Hugh Byrne in 2018. This led him to the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program (MMTCP), from which he graduated in 2023. He has been deeply influenced by the teachings of Jack Kornfield and his teacher Ajahn Chah, along with Howie Cohn and of course Hugh, from whom he learned how poetry can be a powerful tool in cultivating mindfulness.
His teaching and daily work in building bridges across partisan divides are also animated by a personal commitment to cultivating universal compassion for all, as described in Thich Nhat Hanh's poem "Please Call Me By My True Names."
Kate Symes
Kate is a 2021 graduate of the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training Program, where she studied with Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, Sean Feit Oakes, and La Sarmiento. She’s grateful for the opportunity to share those teachings with the CML sangha.
Kate is a 500-hour Registered Yoga Teacher and has taught since 2013. She believes in sharing the powerful lineage of yoga and meditation with all beings, and has taught in gyms, yoga studios, offices, and prisons.
She also teaches and performs improv comedy and sees a deep connection between the two practices, which have taught her how to meet each moment with curiosity, kindness, and humor. Kate explores the mindfulness-improv connection in her Contemplative Improv workshops and in everyday life.
You can find her offerings at www.katesymes.com.
Corina Urdaneta
Corina Urdaneta teaches mindfulness meditation out of a deep love and compassion for the suffering her students experience. Her teaching emphasizes mindfulness of the body as a foundational practice for stabilizing the mind and heart on the path to liberation. She is currently enrolled in the Dharma Leader Training led by Gil Fronsdal (2024–2026) and completed the Mindfulness Mentor Training in 2023. Corina is also a Certified Awakening Joy Teacher (2021), a Certified Mindfulness Meditation Teacher (2021), a Certified Advanced Yoga Teacher through Siddhi Yoga Dharamshala, India (2017), and a Certified Yoga Teacher through Kripalu (2001).
Corina’s approach is inspired by the Theravada Buddhist tradition, particularly as transmitted by Western teachers such as Jack Kornfield, James Baraz, and Gil Fronsdal. Her meditation practice began with Zen over 35 years ago, and for the past 7 years she has practiced exclusively in the Insight tradition.
Jason Waterman
Jason is a longtime practitioner who integrates Dharma into his work as a social worker and psychotherapist. He began meditating in college to manage anxiety and went on to live in Southeast Asia, attending retreats across the region—including a four-month stay at a center in Cambodia and a six-week silent Vipassana retreat.
A graduate of the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield, Jason has taught in diverse settings: jails, schools, Fortune 500 companies, activist circles, hospice, and shelters. He’s contributed to A Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment, the Calm app, and founded his own group, Seeds We Water. Influenced by teachers like Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, S.N. Goenka, and Ayya Dhammadipa, Jason is also a former Division I athlete, Fulbright scholar, and devoted cat-dad.
Karin Wilkinson
Karin is recognized by the International Mindfulness Teachers Association (IMTA) as a Certified Mindfulness Teacher, Professional (CMT-P.) She is a 2016 graduate of the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior Training in Mindfulness Facilitation program.
Karin is a Wellness Coach/Mindfulness Specialist at Georgetown University School of Medicine. She has facilitated interactive mindfulness sessions at several medical conferences and combined mindfulness and poetry for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Karin teaches mindfulness at Inner Visions Institute for Spiritual Development, where she designed the mindfulness curriculum.
Karin has led women’s online cohorts focused on self-love and growth. Since 2011, she has facilitated healing sister bonding women’s retreats. Karin’s poetry and performance art heals.
Karin is living her purpose with passion with love, creativity and humor. Join her!