Ellen Funari has been practicing Buddhism for over 30 years, first at the VT Zen Center and the last 20+ in the Insight or Vipassana tradition as taught at Spirit Rock and the Insight Meditation Center, among other places. She participated in the dedicated practitioner program at Spirit Rock and then was selected for the Community Dharma Leader training at Spirit Rock – a three year training in facilitating and teaching Buddhism in the community. Ellen has taught an introduction to mindfulness for teachers for a number of years through Webster University. She has two daughters and four grandchildren in Burlington and worked as a therapist and later a researcher in the field of peace and conflict transformation. She is mostly retired now.
Eric Coker has been practicing Insight, or Vipassana, meditation for 9 years. For the last several years, he’s been sitting Sundays with the Burlington Buddhist Fellowship and more recently, on Fridays with the Burlington Dharma Collective. He’s also spent several weeks on retreat at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA. He is currently a yoga instructor where he puts mindful attention at the very core of his movement classes. Eric has received training from Brown University in teaching MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction), a well researched, secular version of the traditional insight practice we teach in these classes. In a former life (figuratively), he was a manufacturing engineer at the IBM / GF semiconductor plant in Essex Junction.
Michael Atkinson began formal practice with teachers in 1974 and since then has maintained a daily practice, punctuated by longer retreats. His explorations have led him to spend stretches of several years engaged with different forms of Dharma, principally the vipassana, zen and non-dual traditions. He is an authorized Dharma Teacher and was one of the founders of the Burlington Buddhist Fellowship. He loves this work.
