Influenced by more...

Susan brings to her current teaching a wide range of experience and knowledge drawn from studies and practices that she has engaged throughout her life. In childhood, she was raised Christian in a Congregational church, and she found comfort in the face of difficulty in Christian teachings and scripture. In college she explored a variety of spiritual traditions while earning a BA degree in History of Religions. In her thirties, at a time she was suffering, she turned for the first time to meditation, practicing Christian meditations intensively for 8 years.

In 1995, she was 45 and participating in a spiritual deepening program with a Catholic retreat center and came across Jack Kornfield’s book "A Path with Heart", which describes the Theravada Buddhist path. Immediately there was a recognition, “this is it!” Her first Buddhist retreat was with a Catholic nun, Mary Jo Meadow, PhD, a student of Joseph Goldstein, who taught Christian-Buddhist retreats in collaboration with Carmelite friars. The meditation instruction was pure Theravada vipassana and metta, with dharma talks that reflected on parallels with Christian spiritual life. From the beginning Susan was inspired by both Buddhist psychology and teachings, and by the its effect on her life. At a retreat with Joseph Goldstein, he said that to maintain and deepen the retreat practice one would need to practice at least 2 hours a day. Inspired by the effect of the retreat, Susan went home and did that. Under Mary Jo’s guidance Susan learned to teach vipassana classes, later teaching also Christian-Buddhist retreats with her. In 2001, Susan entered the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation to become more familiar with facilitating spiritual growth.

In her working life, after going to medical school, residency, and fellowship, cognitive neurology became her main focus. In a Memory Disorders Clinic she founded, from 1987-2009, she served patients with diseases of the brain that affect behavior and thinking, such as dementia, head injury, and stroke. When her children left home for college in 2003, Susan felt moved to study western psychology, which had always been her primary interest within neurology. While continuing to work part-time as a neurologist, she completed a PhD in clinical psychology with a concentration in neuropsychology. Her dissertation was on attachment theory as applied to caregiving in elderly spouse caregivers of patients with dementia. Within psychology her main interests are attachment theory, trauma and post-traumatic stress disorders, neuropsychology, and evolutionary psychology.

Concurrent with studying clinical psychology, Susan continued to practice meditation intensively, sitting at least 4 weeks a year of retreat, along with intensive daily practice. At that time, she met a new teacher, psychologist Daniel Brown, PhD, when she went to a hypnosis workshop with him. He knew Theravada vipassana, but he taught an adaptation of Mahamudra instructions that he had developed through study. A brilliant teacher, Dan’s way of teaching condensed the process of teaching through the use of guided meditations, allowing him to give students a taste of deep concentration, which allowed them to access direct experience of emptiness and nonduality meditations. Susan began to study meditation intensively with him, and she began teaching with him in 2005.

In 2007 Dan Brown developed a collaboration with Rahob Rinpoche Thupten Kalsang of the Nyingma school, a Longchen Nyingthig Dzogchen lineage holder from the Kham region of Tibet, who was living in New York. Rahob Rinpoche became Susan’s root lama, offering pointing out instructions to her individually and following her practice. In about 2012, Rahob Rinpoche authorized her to support students who had received pith instructions from a lama. When Susan decided to enter a period of intensive home retreat using a 3-year retreat curriculum from the Nyingma tradition from 2015-18, he provided guidance. For teachings he preferred not to offer to westerners, including tsalung-tummo and togal, he referred her to lamas such as Tulku Dawa Rinpoche of Palyul and Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche. In 2014, just before she was to enter her intensive 3-year retreat, Susan withdrew from teaching with Daniel Brown, PhD.  Since then she has taught independently, while continuing to study with other teachers as described above.

During this period, she also studied with Tulku Sangngag Rinpoche and Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, who are her current main teachers. She is in the midst of long-term meditation instruction and practice commitments with Tulku Sangngag Rinpoche. There is an active Tergar (Mingyur Rinpoche) sangha in Madison, WI, where Susan lives, and she participates in activities there, volunteering as a chant leader and local group leader.

Susan retired from work as a neurologist and psychologist in 2019. During the pandemic years 2020-2022, Susan had opportunities to study online with three teachers whose work and teaching had interested her: Bhikkhu Analayo, a scholar-practitioner of the early Buddhist tradition, Leigh Brasington, who teaches the jhanas as he learned them from Aya Khema, and Guo Gu, a Chan scholar-practitioner. All of them were inspiring influences in this period following her intensive retreat, as she continued to deepen her practice.

Susan is interested in the complementary aspects of western psychology and Buddhist psychology, the abhidarma, which she studied at Barre Center for Buddhist Studies in 2001 in a workshop with Andrew Olendski, PhD. In her teaching Susan attempts to offer Buddhist teachings from a Buddhist perspective, while her perspective is influenced by both. She enjoys pointing to their complementary aspects. From another perspective Susan is also interested in the ways that contemporary neuroimaging can illuminate questions related to the effect of meditation on pain perception, the self, and emotion.

In her personal life, Susan is the mother of two adult children, a son and a daughter. Her son lives with his wife on the east coast, and her daughter in Madison a few blocks from her. Susan takes care of her two granddaughters a day a week. She enjoys gardening. In the last few years, she has deepened a long-term interest in exploring personally and acting on issues related to ending racism, facilitating groups in such explorations. She enjoys reading, hiking, and travel.