Bhante Buddharakkhita was born and raised in Uganda, Africa. He first encountered Buddhism in 1990 while in India, and he began practicing meditation in 1993. After living in Asia for seven years, Bhante decided to continue his Dhamma practice in the U.S.A. In June 2001, he began monastic training, and in November 2002 he received Higher Ordination by his Preceptor the late Venerable U Silananda at Tathagata Meditation Center, California. He continued his meditation practice under the guidance of Bhante Gunaratana for eight years at the Bhavana Society, West Virginia.    Author of Planting Dhamma Seeds: The Emergence of Buddhism on African Soil, and founder of the Uganda Buddhist Center, Uganda, he has been teaching meditation in Africa, Brazil and the United States. Besides spending time at the Buddhist Center in Uganda, Bhante is a teacher at Bhavana Society and the Spiritual Head of Flowering Lotus Meditation and Retreat Center.

Dolores Watson, Founder of Flowering Lotus Meditation and Retreat Center, has been involved with healing modalities of mind, body and spirit for many years.   Her vision for Flowering Lotus is to provide a peaceful place where people of all backgrounds can come to experience healing through meditation, gentle movement and wholesome vegetarian food.  Certified to teach hatha yoga and meditation by Integral Yoga over 35 years ago, she has continued expanding her knowledge of  healing through meditation, visualizations and affirmations.  She has also been rigorously engaged with two transformational groups for more than 20 years:  Landmark Education and Insight.  Having completed her first 10 day Vipassana meditation course led by S.N. Goenka in 2003, she has committed herself to the practice of Vipassana meditation and the sharing of this process with others.

Dolores founded Radiance, a holistic healing center, in New York City in 1984.  The center focused on a strictly vegetarian diet of raw foods, vegetable juice fasting and internal cleansing.  Dolores guided her students through a 4 week process that resulted in self-healing of many diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, abnormal lumps, joint and muscular pain just to name a few.   Besides intestinal cleansing products, she engaged them in meditation, chanting and visualizations.  Prior to Radiance, Dolores taught elementary, junior high, adult education and junior college in New York City. 

_Lydia Munoz Johnson has been a teacher and student of healing modalities for more than thirty-years. She practices the Science of Mind techniques of meditation, prayer treatment, positive affirmation and visualization. For the last eight years, she has been a practitioner of Indigenous African Spiritual Technologies as taught by West African Shaman, Malidoma Some and has also worked with Sobonfu Some. She focuses upon discovering the Elemental Self and using Ritual to connect and maintain balance in our lives.

A third degree Reiki Master and Master Cosmetologist, Lydia has been an entrepreneur for most of her adult life. She has started, owned and managed three successful businesses based in California, dedicated to teaching women how to project their best professional image based upon their own unique lifestyle.

She lives with her husband in Hattiesburg, MS and is a proud grandmother of three. Her mantra: “I enjoy people and being of service. “

Since 1999, Roxanne Lawson has worked as a trainer, a community organizer, global justice advocate, an educator, lobbyist, policy analyst and an anthropologist/ archaeologist on various sites and in various communities around the globe.  Her work has afforded her the opportunity to work with TransAfrica Forum, Friends for Earth-US,  the American Friends Service Committee, the 50 Years is Enough Network, Black Lily Film and Music Festival, CorpWatch.org and United for Peace and Justice.  Ms. Lawson is also a member of Critical Resistance, SUSTAIN and INCITE! Radical Women of Color. 

In 2009, she answered the calling to become a life coach and began to work with others to support their living of authentic and balanced lives.    Today she operates Consciousness Creates an organization devoted to creating tools and techniques that support the social and personal transformation of people whose life is about social-political-cultural-economic-community change.  Roxanne is also the designer of Flowering Lotus Meditation and Retreat Center's website and is its' webmaven.

_
Reba Capers is Vice President of Business Development for Wink Engineering, LLC, a professional consulting firm with offices in New Orleans and Baton Rouge.  A native of Mississippi, she has lived in New Orleans for 22 years. 

Her yoga and meditation practice led her to Flowering Lotus Meditation and Retreat Center, where she was moved and inspired by the vision and spirit of the Center and its Founder.  As Secretary of the Board, she hopes to use her administrative skills to develop Flowering Lotus’s organizational base, and her marketing and public relations experience to strengthen the Center’s finances, market reach, and programs.

_   
Bonnie Shaw is a yoga teacher, Reiki practitioner, and licensed massage therapist.  She began her work in the healing arts after completing her first two levels of Reiki training in January 2009.  Bonnie has continued her study of energy work and is now a Reiki master and qualified teacher with the International Center for Reiki Training.  She began teaching yoga in August 2010 and began her work in massage therapy in September 2011. 

Bonnie is a certified project manager with the Project Management Institute and worked in information technology for 20 years prior to her career change.  She is very grateful to have been guided to this path that gives her the opportunity to assist others in healing.

Marcie Barth is a designer and art director with more than 25 years of experience, including her role as partner in the design and marketing firm Barth and Co. She has been an active Buddhist practitioner since 2001. For several years she planned and coordinated Dharma programs, events, and retreats for Bodhi Monastery in Lafayette, NJ. From 2002 to 2009, she was a member of the Yin Shun Foundation, an organization founded on the vision of Ven. Master Yin Shun. The Yin Shun Foundation promotes the study and practice of Buddhism as an integral whole rather than with a focus on the teachings of a particular Buddhist sect or branch.  Marcie is also a founding board director of Buddhist Global Relief, established by Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi in 2008 in order to provide hunger relief to the world's most impoverished and marginalized, especially women and children. She currently serves as a mentor with the Buddhist Correspondence Course, a program for prisoners sponsored by the Buddhist Association of the United States at Chuang Yen Monastery in Carmel, NY. 

_


Marie A. Toney has spent 20 years working on her physical, emotional, mental and spiritual wellness so she might be a positive force in the world.    In 2011 she joined the Board of Flowering Lotus Meditation and Retreat Center as the next step on her journey. 

Dr. Patricia Brawley maintains a therapy and consulting practice and is a university professor. She has always been deeply interested in mind-body interaction, health,  psychology, creativity, consciousness, and dreams. She is strongly influenced by mindfulness meditation practice, Buddhist philosophy, yoga, and humanistic values and beliefs.

Dr Brawley is an independent scholar and researcher with an interest in phenomenological thought and methodology. She has presented professional papers at national and international conferences across the United States, Canada, Japan, Italy, Finland, and Russia.

She is a member of the American Psychological Association, the American Counseling Association, the International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals, American Mental Health Counselors Association, the Mississippi Licensed Professional Counselors Association, the Mississippi Counselors Association, the Mississippi Psychological Association and the International Human Science Research organization. Dr Brawley, a published author, enjoys writing and leading writing groups.  She lives in McComb, MS with her husband and three cats, Kwan Yin, Nightmare, and Goldilocks.

_Phyllis Lear was born in Lafayette, Louisiana and grew up in a rich Cajun culture of story telling and joie de vie.   She attended several Louisiana universities, earning four degrees in the field of visual arts. Her artwork consists of detailed graphite drawings and collage. Some of the collage elements include found papers, stamps, sticks, wire, labels, buttons, and anything else she may come into contact with as she travels through life. Each mixed media piece tells a story. The stories are somewhat ambiguous and invite interpretation and dialogue with the viewer. Phyllis assists in the telling of the tale by adding words and text to each piece. “These collages are about me - what I have lived, how I have thought, how I have felt. They are a visual journal of my life-journey. Each life-journey is connected to all life-journeys.”    To view some of her work you may go to: www.illearstrations.com.

Phyllis worked as an AmeriCorps/VISTA volunteer in 2011 for CASA of Lafourche. She is also a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate for abused and neglected children).  She presently lives in Thibodaux, Louisiana with her husband were she is working as a freelance artist and art teacher.

Bill's interest in Buddhism began in college when his studies introduced him to Zen.  He began Vipassana Meditation in 1996, when a friend who had been a monk in Thailand recommended it to him as a way to deal with stress.  His first teacher was S.N. Goenka.

Bill lives in New Orleans, LA and is a Registered Nurse.