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.