Staff
Katja Rübsaat
Program Coordinator
Katja had been studying Buddhism for a couple of years when she came
across the German edition of Touching Enlightenment and immediately felt
a strong connection to these teachings. She started her journey with
Dharma Ocean in 2016 with the first Awakening the Body program and
continued to deepen it ever since. Katja is living in Germany, Europe
with her four cats and works with young adults in a social education
center. She is engaged in supporting the European Sangha.
Chantal Buck
Meditation Instructor
Chantal joined Dharma Ocean in 2014 and has since been a student of Reggie Ray in the lineage of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. She lives with family in Connecticut, has worked in various clinical settings and is presently teaching in academia. She enjoys the natural world and all the wonders it holds.
Deborah Raoult
Meditation Instructor
Deborah Raoult lives in Los Angeles where she has a somatic movement and meditation practice dedicated to serving women crossing the thresholds of pregnancy, birth and early mothering. Introduced to the Dharma Ocean lineage through the Meditating with the Body program in 2006, she entered the Vajrayana path in 2008. Deborah is also deeply inspired by her relationship and time with horses in the high desert.
Donald Stikeleather
Meditation Instructor
Donald Stikeleather is a senior hospital chaplain for Indiana University Health, where he supports staff working with COVID, families enduring trauma and patients with head injuries and chronic illnesses related to psychological struggles. He began working with Reggie in 2004 and counts on his somatic awareness to gauge his triage and moment to moment witness of suffering.
Everett Wilson
Meditation Instructor
Everett Wilson is a writer and poet living in Crestone, Colorado with his wife Anoushka and their two dogs, Luna and Eevee. He came to Dharma Ocean after five years of monastic Zen practice at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in California, and has been a tantrika with Dharma Ocean since 2012. He finds Reggie’s somatic approach to meditation and opening up the life of the heart has profoundly deepened his experience of the world.
Jake La Botz
Meditation Instructor
After getting clean from heroin addiction and searching to understand what his life was for, Jake was lucky to discover the dharma of Chögyam Trungpa and then begin working with Reggie as his teacher in 2003. Along the way, he also learned a lot through participating in 12 Step programs, Jungian analysis, and several years training in Aikido. For the last few years, he's been teaching meditation in prisons and in his local community around Nashville, Tennessee. Professionally, Jake is a songwriter and performer.
Jenna Harrison
Meditation Instructor
Jenna Harrison has been studying Buddhism and practicing meditation since she discovered Chögyam Trungpa’s book, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism in the early 90’s. She currently lives in Hawaii where she spends her time soaking in the beauty of the natural world and parenting her teenage son.
Jim Kelly
Meditation Instructor
Jim Kelly lives in upstate New York with his wife Marcia and black lab Buster. They have three grown children. In his working life Jim has been a professional dancer, businessman, and lawyer. These days he practices somatic meditation and teaches yoga, also gardening, walking, and being in nature as much as possible.
Jochen Buck
Meditation Instructor
Jochen grew up in Germany and works in New York City. He is a husband, father of two older children, and explorer of the unknown professionally, spiritually, and in ordinary life.
Justin Dituri
Meditation Instructor
Justin lives in the US in Lafayette, Colorado (Lafayette is near Boulder). He has been married to Judy Dituri for 42 years. His "day job" is work as an estate planning/business planning/tax lawyer. His passion is somatic meditation practice, reading and studying Buddhist philosophy and history, and social/economic philosophy and history. Justin is honored to be available to listen to your experiences in this course – either one-on-one or in a moderated group conversation.
Libby Weathers
Meditation Instructor
Libby Weathers began studying with Reggie Ray in 2007. The depth of genuine awakening over her years of study and practice continually inspires her dedication to this lineage. Professionally, Libby teaches mindfulness in corporate settings, and enjoys hiking and sailing in San Francisco where she currently lives.
Linn Lillsunde
Meditation Instructor
Linn Lillsunde was born in Sweden to Buddhist parents, and grew up in a Tibetan Buddhist center in Stockholm in the early 80's. Although she participated in the pujas as soon as she could sit, she started formal meditation at the age of 12, after a pilgrimage to India and Nepal. In 2010 she met Reggie Ray, and today she is a Dharma Ocean Meditation Instructor. Linn is the founder of Dharma Ocean Paris, and has lead retreats in France and Germany. She lives in Paris, where she is working as a professional violinist. A firm believer in the power of music, Linn has volunteered as a music teacher in the Brazilian Amazon, and regularly organizes charity concerts together with her violin students.
Maria Vargas
Meditation Instructor
Maria Vargas is a long-time student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Dr. Reginald Ray. Out of gratitude for these life-enriching, life-changing Buddhist teachings, she dedicates herself to help making them available to others in both English and Spanish. Maria is a native Coloradan and lives in the Boulder area.
Mary Louise Learned
Meditation Instructor
Mary Louise Learned is an American Buddhist born in Japan. She lives in the woods of Connecticut with her husband and there one year-old Pointer pup, Roux. Mary Louise grew up with the lineage of Chögyam Trungpa and is now a meditation instructor of Somatic Meditation as taught to her by Reggie Ray and the Dharma Ocean community. She spends her days as a personal assistant supporting families, making art and practicing yoga.
Rebeca Castellá
Meditation Instructor
Rebeca Castellá has been studying and practicing with Dharma Ocean since 2006, the year in which Reggie Ray became her main spiritual teacher. She connects deeply with the Meditating with the Body teachings and has been sharing them with others through leading groups, being a Meditation Instructor and leading retreats, since 2011. She is currently living on the island of Ibiza, Spain, together with her husband Braddon. Ibiza is the island where they met at a yoga retreat in the summer of 2004.
