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I was born in Nanjing, China, and grew up in California for most of my life. Ever since I was young, I’ve been curious about human behavior and the mind, so I studied Psychology and Asian Studies at U.C. Berkeley. After graduating, I spent a year traveling around the U.S. and offering service through the Americorps NCCC program, but I still felt that something was missing, so I continued to search. My first meditation retreat was at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in 2009. Something clicked for me, and ever since then I’ve travelled around the world living in Zen and Therāvada monasteries, and sitting in silent meditation retreats. I started with week-long retreats and gradually attended longer, month-longs, mostly at Spirit Rock Meditation Center (California) and Insight Meditation Society (Massachusetts). It’s hard to put into words, but I’ve had the most profound experiences of my life on these silent and sacred retreats. I feel blessed to be able to practice the dharma in this life, the teachings which directly addresses the sufferings of the human mind.
Several years later, I felt I needed a more embodied and physical practice to complement the meditation, so in 2017 I got certified in the JOY Teacher Teaching from Breathe Together Yoga. I’m also currently involved in Stanford CCARE’s Applied Compassion Training, graduating in November 2020. My aim is to share my love of the dharma, and transformative contemplative practices, through teaching meditation and mindful yoga.
3-5 words to describe your teaching style:
Gentle, mindful, sensing, thoughtful
One thing you wish all your students – that everyone, including non-yogis – knew?
I wish that all yoga students would look closely at their minds because all actions of body and speech come from, and originate, in the mind. When we learn to observe and cultivate skillful mind states, and decrease unskillful mindstates, then we naturally become happier people. In other words, try some mindfulness meditation. As the Buddha says, “Mind is the forerunner of all things. If a person speaks or acts with a pure mind (skilful mind), then happiness follows like one’s shadow that never leaves.” Not to mention that the final three limbs of yoga are all about meditation (after āsana, breathwork, etc), so let’s get to it!
What teachers and teachings continue to inspire you?
When I first started practicing yoga and meditation, I just wanted something to help reduce my suffering. When I heard the deeper Buddhist teachings on emptiness and not-self (anattā), I was like “what the heck is this? Just give me something to reduce my suffering!” Now that I’ve been practicing a while, I can see a bit more clearly how the sense of self, all the ideas and concepts and self-identities that we form, protect, defend, prove; how this is also a cause for dis-ease or dissatisfaction. I’m still exploring this in meditation and dharma practice, and, anattā doesn’t mean that there’s no ‘you’ there, because we are here, right? But, it’s just that we’re not who we think we are. Our minds are continuously making up concepts and constructs that we cling to and identify with as being our self. So I’m definitely still exploring it all, and there’s been small glimmers of freedom and lightness, and a glimmer of how much vast freedom could be experienced in this teaching and experience of emptiness (śūnyatā) and not-self (anattā). It’s so subtle and deep, and I’m just so thankful that I’ve come across the dharma in this life, and that I can practice to be free!