It is all around us. It is present with every breath but we barely notice...the fact that every moment of our existence is disappearing even as it arises. We live in a sea of ceaseless change.
Anna Douglas
Residential Retreat Teacher
Anna Douglas, PhD (1939-2025), was a Spirit Rock founding teacher and the founder of Insight Meditation Tucson. She taught classes and retreats in the Insight Meditation tradition for more than 40 years. Anna was an innovator, leading retreats on creativity, women’s wisdom, aging and dying, and other topics having to do with applying the Dharma to daily life practice. She divided her time between the San Francisco Bay Area and the Sonoran desert of Arizona.
A Tribute by Spirit Rock founding teacher Howard Cohn
Our dear friend and colleague Anna Douglas died early Wednesday morning (March 12, 2025) after a steady decline, mostly due to advanced Parkinson’s. She was quite ready to die and for the next adventure, as curious about what was on the other side as she was about everything in her life. She was always thinking outside the box and taking us all along with her. Her creative spirit brought art to our retreats, along with programs for women and aging. Before it was central to our mission, she was passionate about diversity and expanding our welcoming community.
Anna was a Spirit Rock founder and a member of Jack Kornfield’s first teacher training cohort along with me, James Baraz, Sharda Rogell, and Sylvia Boorstein. As a group, we were pretty much unteachable. Despite many ups and downs, we supported each other, became lifelong friends, and helped Jack refine the future teacher trainings. Before her 40-year meditation teaching career, she was a Broadway actress and a psychologist, and once she found the Dharma, she jumped into full adventure mode, spending 10 months as an LTY (long-term yogi) at IMS (Insight Meditation Society) as well as other retreats. She was a skilled and beloved teacher, no doubt the fruit of her depth and breadth of practice. Through it all, her intelligence, quick wit, humor, and infectious laugh, right up until the end, will forever reverberate in our hearts.
Anna was found with her reading glasses resting on a book of poetry next to her on the bed. My wife Annie reminded me that she died near the blood full moon eclipse, considered an auspicious time to shed oneself of what’s not needed anymore. Anna, may you truly be free!
Dharma Library
Can't join us live online or on the land? Study and practice at your convenience with Anna Douglas through our new library of recordings, articles, and self-paced online courses.