About Shaila

Shaila Catherine is the founder of both Bodhi Courses, an online Dhamma classroom, and Insight Meditation South Bay, a center for mindfulness, compassion, and wisdom in Silicon Valley, California.

Shaila has been practicing meditation since 1980, with more than nine years of accumulated silent retreat experience. She has taught meditation since 1996 in the USA, Europe, Israel, New Zealand, and Canada. Shaila has dedicated several years to studying with masters in India, Nepal and Thailand, completed a one year intensive meditation retreat with the focus on concentration and jhana practices, and authored Focused and Fearless: A Meditator’s Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity (2008). She has extensive experience with the practice of metta, including seven months exploring metta as the meditation subject in retreats. From 2006-2014 Shaila trained in samadhi and vipassana under the direction of Venerable Pa-Auk Sayadaw of Myanmar and then authored Wisdom Wide and Deep: A Practical Handbook for Mastering Jhana and Vipassana (2011) to help make this traditional approach to meditative training accessible to western practitioners. Her third book, Beyond Distraction: Five Practical Ways to Focus the Mind (2022) offers strategies to overcome restlessness and remove distracted thoughts to support the development of mindfulness, concentration, and insight.

Training with Great Masters

Shaila Catherine was introduced to meditation in 1980 and began a lifetime of dedicated dharma practice.

Shaila has studied with renowned teachers in the United States, England, India, Thailand and Nepal. She trained with the founders of western insight meditation centers including Christopher Titmuss and Joseph Goldstein, as well as eminent Asian teachers H.W.L. Poonja, Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche and Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche.

She has twice completed the rigorous jhāna and vipassanā training program of Pa-Auk Sayadaw and honed her satipaṭṭhāna practice while teaching with Anālayo Bhikkhu.

with buddhist meditation teacher C Titmuss

1991
Christopher Titmuss,
H.W.L. Poonja &
Shaila Catherine

1990
Shaila Catherine &
H.W.L. Poonja

Pa-Auk Sayadaw

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