David Nichtern is a senior Buddhist teacher and CEO and Founder of Dharma Moon, 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 animated series 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 books 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 also 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 hit song "Midnight at the Oasis" and composed the score for Christopher Guest's film "The Big Picture". In recent years he has produced multiple records for and periodically tours with Grammy nominated kirtan performer Krishna Das.

www.davidnichtern.com

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Duncan Trussell is a comedian, the host of the Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast, and co-creator of The Midnight Gospel series on Netflix.

Ethan Nichtern is the author of Confidence: Holding Your Seat through Life’s Eight Worldly Winds and several other titles, including the widely acclaimed The Road Home: A Contemporary Exploration of the Buddhist Path. A renowned contemporary Buddhist teacher and the host of The Road Home Podcast, Nichtern has offered meditation and Buddhist psychology classes at conferences, meditation centers, yoga studios, and universities, including Brown, Yale, and NYU. He has been featured by CNN, NPR, the New York Times, Vogue, and Business Insider and has written for the Huffington Post, Beliefnet, Lion’s Roar, Tricycle, Buddhadharma, and more. He lives in Brooklyn. Visit him online athttp://www.EthanNichtern.com

Rebecca D’Onofrio is the Programming and Operations Director of Dharma Moon. She also serves as a senior teacher, providing training and mentoring support to the teaching team, and is the co-presenter of the Metta (Loving-Kindness) Meditation Teacher Training. Rebecca has been a dedicated practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism since 2013 and is a certified meditation teacher and trauma-informed yoga instructor with over 15 years of experience. Additionally, Rebecca is the director of RDYoga, LLC a company she founded in 2014 that creates tailored wellness programming for a variety of organizations to help transform workplace culture and work-life balance by integrating mindfulness-based practices. Rebecca supports her community by serving as a hospice volunteer and providing Buddhist end-of-life services. Her teaching philosophy centers on aligning and merging spiritual principles with everyday life. 

René is the Community Director for Dharma Moon. They are a certified mindfulness meditation teacher and death doula, they studied comparative religion and gender studies, and they earned their black belt at 17. René’s career has a long and extensive history of advocacy, with a focus on collaboration with, support of, and focus on: at-risk youth; queer communities and people; intimate partner violence/sexual assault prevention and intervention; and grief and crisis counseling. René is passionate about making meditation and dharma teachings radically accessible and has personally used meditation to transform their relationship with their own anxiety and chronic health issues. Outside of work, they're likely to be knitting while trapped under a cat listening to podcasts.

Susan Layden is a senior teacher with Dharma Moon, serving as the coordinator of the 100 hr Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training program. She has been a close senior student of David Nichtern for over 10 years. She received her 100 hr meditation certificate from David Nichtern and Kaia Yoga. She is an experienced yoga and meditation teacher. She is a 500hr E-RYT and a YACEP (continuing education provider with Yoga Alliance) and holds a 100 hr certification from Little Flower Yoga to teach mindfulness and yoga to children. Susan is a 4th degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido. She has studied and taught under Grandmaster Ik Jo Kang for over 20 years. She is registered under Tae Kwon Do Jidokwan in Korea. She is the mother to three precious adult daughters. Susan is committed to her practices, her family, and giving back to her community. She has been in recovery for over 30 years.

Brittaney Valentino is an E-RYT 500, YACEP and mindfulness meditation teacher and owner of Rooted Nest LLC, a yoga and meditation company based in Wilmington, DE. She is also the co-founder of Embodied Mind LLC, a mindfulness-based consulting company. Along with offering online and in-person classes nationwide, she also moonlights as a senior teacher and the Programs Coordinator at Dharma Moon Incorporated, an online mindfulness-based learning platform and global community under the direction of her mentor, senior Buddhist teacher David Nichtern. When not teaching or practicing, she enjoys making memories with her family by traveling, being in the woods, hanging out by lakes, cooking, and gardening.

Noel Coakley is a psychotherapist, meditation teacher and former elementary school special educator. He has studied Tibetan Buddhism since 1997 and the Bön tradition since 2013. He is a father, husband, and friend to a dog named Clementine. Noel is the director of the Boston Center of Contemplative Practice, a senior teacher of Dharma Moon, and co-presenter of the Metta (Loving-Kindness) Meditation Teacher Training. Noel is dedicated to the accessibility of the dharma and its application in modern culture.

Seth Freedman is Dharma Moon's Marketing and Communications Director. A long time student of meditation, he has worked in the field of mindfulness and meditation for over a decade and has built online platforms, created programming, and run marketing for many of the leading teachers and organizations today. His past clients include Calm, Google, Open Meditation, New York Insight, Institute for Mindful Leadership, New York Zen Center, Lama Rod Owens, and many others.