Soryu Forall is an American-born meditation teacher dedicated to serving all living beings. He teaches that this path is the mutually supportive relationship between Awakening and Responsibility, the positive feedback loop between Correct Perception and Correct Behavior.
Soryu has done intensive contemplative practice for over two decades, training in Buddhist monasteries in Asia, primarily under the Zen Master Shodo Harada. He also has a degree in Economics with a focus on Environmental Science from Williams College. As the founder of the Center for Mindful Learning and Head Teacher at the Monastic Academy, Soryu offers teachings based in Shinzen Young’s Unified Mindfulness to residents, local community members, and young people around the world. He is grateful for the gifts many teachers have offered him, including those in the Christian, Lakota, Diné, Abenaki, scientific, and the Zen, Ambedkar, Theravada, and Kagyud Buddhist traditions. Soryu works to use mindfulness, leadership, and exponential growth to save life on earth from human greed and create conditions for awakening.
Renshin has been a resident at MAPLE since May 2019.
Renshin is in a lifelong struggle for truth and virtue. She has been a Magic: The Gathering competitor / content creator, an iOS developer, a rationality researcher / instructor, a community builder, and a Circling facilitator. Now, at MAPLE, she seeks the ability to stay in one place and become someone people can rely on—a dependable, trustworthy, wise and loving leader.
Kyōshin grew up in Guangzhou, China until she moved to New York City with her parents at age 10. After graduating from Brown University with a degree in Computer Science, she worked as a software engineer for about ten years. During this time, she accumulated many unhelpful mental patterns, resulting in depression, anxiety, self-hatred and loneliness. She began teaching herself psychology, philosophy, and interpersonal communication, as well as practicing meditation and mindful self-compassion.
Gradually, she has embraced new ways of showing up, including eating a 100% plant-based diet to stop participating in causing animal suffering, and dancing like no one’s watching whenever she feels called to. In June 2019, she attended Sōryū’s first talk at OAK and was intrigued by his candor, insightfulness, and ability to see people unusually clearly. She began attending OAK’s morning meditation and chanting, until one morning she felt as if she was going to where she truly belonged, and knew that she needed to train with MAPLE and OAK. She has since trained at both locations as an apprentice and now as a resident.
Vīrabhadra grew up in the suburbs of Toronto, born to two loving parents.
As a teenager, he was drawn to Nirvana, the band and the grunge vibe. A search for the meaning of ‘Nirvana’ led him to zenguide.com and to a story of the Buddha, the four noble truths, the eightfold path, and practices, which many years later would come forth again.
Based partly on an interest in trustworthy leaders and organizations, Virabhadra began training with CEDAR in April 2020, becoming Willow’s first trainee resident and a seasonal resident at MAPLE.
He is grateful to his parents, friends, university and the communities of Humanism, science, and Effective Altruism for all they offered him.
Further Buddhist and cyborg training, ungraspable serving of all beings, and monastic ordination await him.
Matthew was born, raised, and educated in Greater Boston. He wanted to be a doctor when he was a kid, but his love of stories led him to study literature in college. He spent a postgraduate fellowship on organic farms in Ireland, where he cultivated (along with potatoes) a passion for museums and cultural preservation. He left this field during the pandemic, feeling called to directly address the root of suffering in his own life and in the world.
He sat his first meditation retreat at MAPLE and joined as an apprentice in the fall of 2021. He applied for residency without being accepted, but continued to visit MAPLE for retreats while pursuing personal development through modalities like IFS and Circling. After traveling for three months with the Mobile Monastery Chautauqua Tour, he re-applied, and his residency began in winter 2022.
The summer of 2018, two months before Namgyal was set to graduate University, he experienced a cascade of physical health challenges resulting in a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. This new reality was a turning point in Namgyal’s spiritual path, catalyzing a visceral clarity around the injustices of not only a corrupt healthcare industry, but an ecologically destructive global economic system. This led Namgyal into a period of intensive inquiry around how to make a meaningful impact on a world in crisis.
After multiple years of consistent daily meditation and formal meditation retreats, it became clear that the human mind was at root of these crises – when the mind suffers, suffering proliferates outwards to other beings. In order to take responsibility for the world, the mind must be addressed.
Namgyal strives with the aspiration of one day offering what he’s learned about the mind, the path, and what it means to live a meaningful life, to others. Ultimately, Namgyal trains at MAPLE for the preservation of life on Earth.
Yeshe has had a long time passion for discovering the nature of things. This led her to study computer science, math, physics, and philosophy before expanding her scope of inquiry to seek the depths of human authenticity and connection. Along the way she trained in transformational addiction recovery and psychedelic integration, and struggled in her own life to find real ways to change habits at every level. All of these interests converged as she learned that meditation offered a path that addressed all of this. She hoped to find a way to practice science and spiritual contemplation in a way that would be new and beneficial to both.
In 2021 she visited MAPLE and felt like she finally met Buddhism and the path and her vow could come to life, in particular the aspiration to serve all beings. Upon further training here, she saw how her vow aligns with the mission here and the work to offer wise AI systems to the world. Now as a resident, she’s ecstatically seeking to let go of herself to completely align with living for the benefit of all beings.
Bhadda Heidi Marchi is a joyful, empathetic, energetic human who cares deeply about all beings, and is motivated to serve the world in the most compassionate way possible.
She graduated from Grand Valley State University with a BS in Psychology, and a minor in Studio Art in 2020. While enrolled, she served on the executive board of Meditation and Mindfulness Club, witnessing firsthand the healing powers of gathering in a trustworthy community of practice. She was introduced to Buddhism through Dharma art workshops led by her painting professor and mentor, Jill, and is very enthusiastic about the intersection of mindfulness and creative expression. Over the last 5 years she has been urgently and intentionally striving to do less harm to the planet, working with individual and collective sustainability and environmental protection efforts. She has been vegan for 4 years, and finds this a spiritually supportive diet. Her vow is to fully embody grace and compassion, and she is incredibly grateful for the MAPLE community fostering the development of the skills of wisdom, love and power in order to actualize this.
Matt came to MAPLE for his own spiritual growth, as well as to help build systems that can improve the spiritual growth of humanity. He has a background in entrepreneurship, previously having run a startup dedicated to helping organizations make wiser decisions. He owns a coaching practice focused on helping people be productive and process their emotions without beating themselves up.
Previously, he worked with character development in children, including developing a magician training program for youth, and a character-development based after-school curriculum. He looks to use these varied skills to help MAPLE preserve life on earth.
Bodhi was drawn to MAPLE to advance his spiritual practice and to learn how to facilitate transformative education. He spends his time studying and practicing the Buddhadharma and working on curriculum, culture, and civilizational design. He is interested in meditation and spiritual awakening, social emotional learning, purpose development, emerging technology, and existential risk – and how their convergence in education might create trustworthy leaders and systems that benefit all life and respond to the crises of our time.
After graduating from Hamilton College where he played basketball and studied inequality and development, Bodhi won a post-graduate fellowship to investigate exemplary learning environments around the world. He visited schools, accelerators, and ministries in the Nordics, participated in teacher trainings, meditation retreats, and education conferences in Asia, and immersed himself in leadership academies, NGOs, and intentional communities across Africa. The most insightful and joyous moments, however, came from his time at Buddhist monasteries. This propelled him to become a mindful leadership teacher with the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, an education non-profit born at Google, and ultimately to the Monastic Academy where he gets to deepen his practice and help shape a network of transformative wisdom institutions.
Keshin (Renee Anthony) Dee is a retired symphonic musician (bassoonist with The Cleveland Pops Orchestra and others), music educator (The College of Wooster, Bowling Green State University, The University of Akron and others), and arts advocate in roles from board president to theater producer to union administrator. A lifelong calling to facilitate understanding and connection is woven into the fabric of her life. A shift away from her arts career created the space for this calling to manifest more directly as she became acquainted with the MAPLE community and the Unified Mindfulness system of meditation. After attending a retreat lead by Shinzen Young at MAPLE, Keshin undertook UM training online. Certified as an L2 Coach, she was a major support in developing UM’s annual online global event, Immersion, as well as helping to launch the UM Pathways program in India. Working with individuals and groups in virtual spaces, Keshin lives her calling to facilitate connection and mindfulness broadly. She and her husband Konshin Richard Dee are thrilled to be among the first families to join the MAPLE Village of the Monastic Academy, where living in community with lay practitioners and monastic residents offers a new way to deepen practice and sustain life on Earth.
Ānandabodhi first came to MAPLE as a co-working guest in 2019, following his longing to live in a community that truly cared about, and embodied, the question: “How can we be of service to the world?” While here, it became clear that his studies in economics and work in international development, while interesting and beneficial in some ways, were still both grossly and subtly perpetuating a way of living based in greed and destruction. He is incredibly grateful to the bird he met on the November 2019 retreat that revealed to him a way of being that is in accord with what is actually good, true and beautiful.While it took him some time (about a year and a half) to align his life situation with this newfound truth, he did eventually return to MAPLE as an apprentice in March of 2021. Since then he has been striving to answer the updated question of his life: “How can I give my body, mind, and life completely to Great Love for the benefit of all beings?” No matter what task is before him, he commits himself to doing it as fully as he can, praying that his actions are of true benefit for all beings.
Konshin (Richard Dee) fell in love with MAPLE when he visited his son, Jōshin, during the summer of 2016. He was moved by the early morning chanting and jolted out of his stupor by the work ethic. His former selves have included: clarinet performer and teacher, corporate CFO and COO for a major rubber additive distributor, 20+ years of 12 step work, meditation and mindfulness coach, bicyclist, yoga and fitness enthusiast, father of two children, loving husband, and grateful son. Now he and his spouse, Keshin, with their dog Atticus, are building a life at MAPLE based in ethical living, sustainability for the environment, and a commitment to community. Their new home has been designed to be a welcoming presence for the entire CML family. Konshin will be an active member of the community, with special focus on gardening, land conservation, and systems improvement, helping and supporting in any way he can.
Maitrī grew up in the suburbs of Southern California in a mixed Middle-Eastern / White family. Her first encounters with a spiritual world were through the framings of the Seventh-day Adventist church as a child, where as a child, she developed a relationship with a loving God. Impulses to move beyond her small suburban world and closed religious community took her to UC Berkeley for college, where she studied Anthropology. After a stint in the world of Corporate Social Impact (at eBay), she moved to Guatemala, where she devoted five years of life to community development work in projects devoted to health, education, and artisan market access in Indigenous communities. For her graduate research at the University of Oslo, a deep fascination with the interconnections between spirituality and global crisis lead her to explore the role of the Maya Cosmovision—the worldview of Indigenous Guatemalans—in climate change transformations. She joined the MAPLE community to more fully embody lifelong inquiries around what is true, what is Holy, and how to live a life worth living during a time of profound upheaval.
Tsültrim is a builder, mechanic, and social entrepreneur from Boston, MA. From an early age, she has been concerned about the problems of the world, searching for clarity, and striving to be of service. She was an apprentice at OAK, the California location, in 2020, and came to MAPLE to help with some carpentry projects in the spring of 2022. She is now the head of facilities and property manager.
She has had a professional career in custom fabrication. In this demanding, fast-paced work she developed skills in carpentry, welding, electronics, and general problem solving; and eventually in leadership, leading teams of builders through many challenging projects.
In 2008 she founded a unique last-mile-logistics company in Boston, utilizing a fleet of pedal-powered vehicles and cargo bicycles to transport goods around the urban area. Her company mission was to increase community self-reliance and reduce pollution and dependence on fossil fuels. After a decade-plus growing and maintaining a successful business, she took a leap and became a wandering nomad searching for a more impactful way to contribute to the world. Grateful that this search has led her to live at MAPLE.
Autumn is a 5th generation Californian with a background as a violinist, massage practitioner, contact improv teacher, poet, and project manager.
Before joining the Monastic Academy in 2017, she co-founded the Bridge Within movement and traveled the US and Canada doing massage, teaching contact improv, and organizing events. She is also co-founder of I Am We, a consciously curated resource network that bridges the communities of integrative spirituality, holistic health, sustainable living, and creative and performing arts. She is passionate about networking, growth, helping people discover and actualize their dreams, going on adventures, sharing art and healing and movement, creative collaborative projects, community-building, Spiritual Practice, and the ocean.
