Winnie Nazarko

Winnie Nazarko first contacted the Dharma at a 1981 weekend retreat taught by Stephen and Ondrea Levine. While the retreat wasn’t what she expected, she recognized something deeply truthful in what she heard.

Since that time, she has studied with many outstanding western teachers, including Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Steven Armstrong, and Kamala Masters. She has additionally benefited from the wisdom of monastic teachers, most recently the great Burmese concentration master Pa Auk Sayadaw, who taught her jhanas.

For two decades, Winnie practiced and studied Dharma while working in human services leadership roles. In 1999, after sitting Insight Meditation Society’s annual three month retreat, she was asked to train to teach by Joseph Goldstein. In 2004 she completed a year long silent retreat at the Forest Refuge as part of this preparation. In 2010 she completed a multi-year teacher training program led by mentor Jack Kornfield and other well respected teachers, and was formally authorized to teach.

She is now a Guiding Teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA where she teaches retreats of varying lengths at both the Retreat Center and the Forest Refuge. She also teaches at other centers, both individually and with other well respected Insight Meditation teachers. She currently serves as the Board Chair for the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.