Terry Cortés-Vega began her training in mindfulness in 1998 with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, and in 2012 she was ordained as a Dharmacharya, Dharma Teacher, in his Order of Interbeing. She teaches in the United States and Mexico, both in-person and online, and has been described as an “insightful, heartfelt and creative” teacher of the Dharma whose talks are “humorous and relatable, simple yet profound.” For more than 30 years, Terry has led a weekly meditation, mindfulness, yoga, and Buddhist studies class in jails and prisons, and for more than 40 years she has owned and directed a summer program for gifted youngsters, born of her experience as an award-winning K-12 public school teacher.
Terry is a resident Dharma Teacher at Plum Blossom Sangha in Austin, Texas. Since the 1990s, she has organized a group of practitioners who gather to meditate outside City Hall during every execution on Texas’s Death Row, an enduring expression of her commitment to bringing mindfulness and compassion into some of the most difficult corners of public life.
Friday 4:00-5:45pm
Beginning Meditation: Come Home to the Present Moment
Meditation doesn’t require special skills, beliefs, or experience—it simply asks us to pause and pay attention. In this welcoming workshop, we’ll explore the basics of meditation through simple practices of breathing, sitting, walking, and mindful awareness. We’ll discover how meditation can help us become more present, meet our thoughts and feelings with greater kindness, and find a place of steadiness in this wobbly world. No experience needed—come as you are.
Intensity of Practice: 1 – All Levels
60% Meditation, 40% Discussion
Saturday 11:15a-12:30p
Where Does Meditation Lead Us?
Let’s explore what lies beyond simply learning to sit and quiet the mind. Through meditation, prayer, reflection, conversation and teachings from Buddhism and Thich Nhat Hanh, we will explore questions such as: What are we discovering when we become still? How might meditation change our understanding of self, suffering, connection, and freedom? We will move between periods of practice and inquiry, allowing meditation to become not just something we do, but a way of seeing and being in the world.
Intensity of Practice: 1 – All Levels
60% Meditation, 40% Discussion
Sunday 9:30-10:45am
The Freedom to Be: Meditation and the Spiritual Journey
Meditation is more than a technique for becoming calm or focussed; it can become a way of exploring who we are and how we meet the world. In this experiential workshop, we will meditate together and explore some of the questions that arise from practice: What does it mean to be present? Who are we when we become still? Can meditation change our relationship to suffering, freedom, and one another? Drawing on the wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh, yoga and my experience teaching meditation in prison, we will consider meditation not simply as something we practice on a cushion, but as a way of being—with ourselves, with others, and with the world.
Intensity of Practice: 1 – All Levels
60% Meditation, 40% Discussion