Senior Teachers

Acharyas

Acharya is a Sanskrit word that means “teacher.” It refers to individuals that Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche has empowered to represent him and the Kagyu, Nyingma, and Shambhala lineages he holds. Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche chose these individuals because of their knowledge, wisdom, and commitment to the confluence of teachings found in Shambhala.

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Melissa Moore

Melissa Moore, PhD., has been a student of Shambhala since 1979. She has an MA in Contemplative Psychotherapy from Naropa University, attended the 1985 seminary, has been teaching internationally since 1990, and was empowered as a Shastri in 2010. She co-founded, and continues to teach and develop, The Karuna Training, a 3-year professional certificate training in Contemplative Psychology and a division of Shambhala Europe.

Melissa is a Senior Executive of Family Service Agency of San Francisco and since 2005 has been the founding Director of The Felton Institute dedicated to research and training in community mental health services for marginalized populations suffering from mental illness. Melissa has a PhD in Psychological Anthropology from California Institute of Integral Studies and a Post Doctoral degree from University of California San Francisco in Community Based Research and Psychiatric Treatment. She has extensive experience as a clinician and manager of several clinics developed for the treatment of eating disorders, dissociative disorders and trauma related illnesses.

Shastris

In Sanskrit, shastri literally means “teacher learned in the texts and commentaries”. The shastris have been selected from our dedicated senior teachers, as well as from newer, youger teachers and will serve a term of three years.

The shastris role is to bring the current understanding of the Shambhala Buddhist vision and teachings to their centres, to be a reference point for questions about the path, and in particular to help establish The Way of Shambhala curriculum as the core path. A major role of the shastri is to personally mentor and strengthen the local teaching mandala.

Shastris will also support the leadership in Shambhala centres in building comunity and strengthening the vision of enlightened society.

Shastri Amy ConwayAmy Conway

Amy Conway works as a senior managerial consultant for Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, working with physicians to improve the quality of healthcare particularly in the areas of depression treatment and women’s health. She also enjoys chi kung, hiking, yoga, cooking, and spending time with sangha. She is the former director of Northern California Shambhala.