About Shaila
Shaila Catherine is the founder of both Bodhi Courses, an online Dhamma classroom, and Insight Meditation South Bay, a Silicon Valley-based center for mindfulness, compassion, and wisdom.
She has taught insight meditation since 1996 in the USA, Europe, Israel, New Zealand, and Canada. Inspired by the Discourses of the Buddha, Shaila maintains an unwavering dedication to awakening. Students express deep appreciation for her expertise in guiding practitioners to cultivate concentration and the deep absorption states of jhāna, as well as for her enthusiasm for sutta study.
Shaila’s first book Focused and Fearless: A Meditator’s Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity (Wisdom Publications, 2008), introduces concentration practices and the absorption states of jhāna. She authored Wisdom Wide and Deep: A Practical Handbook for Mastering Jhāna and Vipassanā (Wisdom Publications, 2011) to help make the traditional meditation teachings of Venerable Pa-Auk Sayadaw accessible to western practitioners. Her third book, Beyond Distraction: Five Practical Ways to Focus the Mind (Wisdom Publications, 2022), shares practical Buddhist strategies for overcoming restlessness and distraction both on and off the cushion.
Training with Great Masters
Born and raised in the USA, Shaila Catherine was introduced to meditation in 1980 during her senior year in high school. This training launched a lifetime of dedicated dhamma practice, during which she accumulated over nine years of silent retreat practice.
Shaila studied with renowned teachers in the USA, England, India, Thailand, and Nepal. She practiced with the founders of western meditation centers including Christopher Titmuss, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Anna Douglas, and Lama Surya Das. She lived abroad for most of the 1990s and trained with eminent Asian teachers including H.W.L. Poonja, Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche, and Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche.
In 2004, Shaila completed a 10-month intensive meditation retreat focusing on developing jhāna while using the breath as the meditation subject. She devoted nearly seven months in retreat to working with mettā and brahmavihara practices. And she twice completed a rigorous jhāna and vipassanā training program guided by Venerable Pa-Auk Sayadaw of Myanmar.
Shaila embodies the teachings of the great masters with whom she has trained. She is devoted to her meditation practice, gains inspiration from the early discourses of the Buddha, appreciates the detailed style of Abhidhamma, and values diverse approaches to developing and liberating the mind.
She enjoys exploring a variety of meditation systems, but her preferred approach is to establish mindfulness by observing breath, body, feelings, and mind states—practices traditionally known as ānāpānasati and satipaṭṭhāna.
1991
Christopher Titmuss,
H.W.L. Poonja &
Shaila Catherine
1990
Shaila with H.W.L. Poonja
Pa-Auk Sayadaw
Extensive Teaching Experience
Shaila has been leading meditation retreats worldwide since Christopher Titmuss first invited her to teach in 1996. Her approach to dhamma teaching emphasizes deep concentration, mettā, and the path of liberating insight. Students and colleagues describe her an accessible and compassionate teacher, with deep meditative attainment and exceptional clarity.
She is regarded as one of only a few western specialists skilled to train meditators to attain the deep absorption states called jhānas.
Shaila teaches retreats on her own, and she also enjoys co-teaching. She has taught numerous meditation retreats with Venerable U Jagara that emphasize gradual training, concentration through mindfulness with breathing, and mettā practice. She honed her satipaṭṭhāna practice while co-teaching with Anālayo Bhikkhu.
In addition to leading retreats, Shaila has created some unique programs and courses, including a 14-year study of all the sutta collections available as English translations. Her library of teachings features a wealth of online courses to support and challenge beginner-to-experienced meditators around the world.
Shaila Catherine represents a new generation of Dharma practitioner in the West, with in-depth experience studying with some of the greatest masters of both the Theravadan and Tibetan Buddhist traditions. Her commitment to intensive practice has been matched by her dedication to study, and her exploration of the practice of concentration and jhanas reflects both these strengths.
— Sharon Salzberg, author of Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience
I consistently find Shaila’s teachings to be accessible, clear, and inspiring. I particularly value the depth of Shaila’s understanding of the dhamma and her ability to connect it to experience that is relevant to my own practice.
— Katrina B., Georgia
Shaila writes with an authority that comes from genuine meditation experience, and a clarity that is informed by her own personal experiences of this training.
— Pa-Auk Sayadaw, author of The Workings of Kamma
Great teachers not only know their stuff, they embody what they have learned. Shaila is profoundly serious about her teaching, deeply attentive to her students, and yet she is never more than a couple of seconds away from a hearty and joy-filled laugh. She is a wonderful teacher, and her courses are profound!
— Michael M., California
Shaila Catherine is a deep, wonderful Dharma teacher and one of the most profound Buddhist practitioners in the West. She has a warm heart and is also gifted with crystal clarity of thought. Her talks and instructions glow with simplicity, humility and humor.
— Kate Lila Wheeler, editor of In This Very Life: Liberation Teachings of the Buddha
Shaila’s strongest gift as a teacher is helping her students navigate the nuances of concentration practice. In doing so she is precise and sensitive, demanding and encouraging, true to her Pa-Auk Sayadaw lineage yet mindful of the challenges we Westerners face in feeling our way into absorption practice.
— Martin K., California
Shaila is a clear, fervent, eloquent, delightful voice within the movement to restore a well-rounded understanding of Buddha-Dhamma. Rather than the trendy promises of pop Buddhism—better relationships and the like—Shaila’s teaching points to the promise of non-clinging to anything in this world, that is, liberation from suffering.
— Santikaro, editor of Heartwood of the Bodhi Tree
I appreciate Shaila’s integrity to the millennia old Buddhist texts and her ability to teach directly from them. I love the intellectual illumination I get from Shaila’s dhamma talks. Her clear, orderly and compassionate teaching has benefited my practice.
— Connie S., Texas
Shaila is an excellent teacher with a vast knowledge and personal experience of meditation and dharma practice. She is quite unique in the breadth of her experience, which arises from years of dedicated learning from the greatest living masters of Myanmar, India and the West. There is a precision, clarity, and humor in her teaching. In short, Shaila is an excellent and wise dharma teacher.
— Stephen Fulder, author of What’s Beyond Mindfulness?: Waking Up to This Precious Life
Shaila has both an encyclopedic knowledge of the suttas and profound skill in giving very clear, specific, doable instruction on how to apply the Buddha’s teaching to personal practice.
— Jude F., Texas
Shaila brings a wealth of personal experience to the Dharma that exceeds teachers who are a generation older than herself. Like yogis of old, she loves entering into extensive periods of silence and personal retreat. Such commitment gives her voice enormous authority. I would encourage everyone, from the complete beginner to the most seasoned meditator and mind/body professional to listen to the teachings and guidance of Shaila.
— Christopher Titmuss, author of The Buddha of Love and The Spiritual Roots of Mindfulness
Shaila is not the kind of teacher who offers a dharma talk and then is off sequestered the rest of the day; she’s the kind of teacher that is right there with you, practicing along with you, all day long, showing you the proof is in the pudding. My other teachers have ranged from being totally unapproachable to minimally accessible. Shaila breaks the mold and offers herself, her teachings, her direct experience, and the great teachings from her respected lineage freely and openly. Months after attending a retreat led by Shaila, my heart is still full of gratitude for what she was kind enough to offer me.
— Gary Sanders, Insight Meditation Teacher
Studying with Shaila is a precious gift. She has something to offer everyone, from beginner to advanced practitioner. Her pragmatic teaching style ensures that I always walk away from her classes with not only a deeper understanding of the Dhamma, but also a clear understanding of how the Dhamma applies to my own spiritual practice.
— Kathleen N., Indiana
As a laywoman who has crafted a beautifully dedicated life, Shaila guides by example. I highly recommend Shaila as a trustworthy and compassionate guide who has walked the path in many traditions and forms, and has the ability to help sincere students, at any level, to find ease for the suffering of our human condition and to discover its hidden potential.
— Kate Lila Wheeler, editor of In This Very Life: Liberation Teachings of the Buddha
Shaila is a terrific Dharma teacher and accomplished Buddhist practitioner, a genuine Bodhisattva. I have known her for many years, in both India and America. We studied and practiced together under some of the same master teachers. She has a clear mind and a generous, loving and unselfish heart. I believe that anyone interested in our practice tradition would benefit by studying with her.
— Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening the Buddha Within
I can’t recommend highly enough Shaila Catherine’s dhamma teachings. Grounded in decades of deep meditation experience and study, her guidance offers a rare combination of heart, intellectual rigor, down-to-earth practicality, and a faithfulness to tradition that’s balanced by refreshing open-mindedness. Beginners and veterans alike will benefit from her wisdom and the loving care with which she presents the dhamma.
– Jeremy G., Arizona
