IDCSF provides a home for insight meditation practice and Theravada Buddhist study in San Francisco that is welcoming to diverse communities and connected to the life of the city.

We support integrating meditation and Buddhist practice into daily life, with an emphasis on our impact on each other and the world. We currently serve as an online hub for online insight meditation sitting groups, events and retreats.

Our future urban meditation center will be a place for classes, sitting groups, community activities, service work, and more, rooted in the cultivation of integrity, wisdom and compassion.

Nonprofit Board

Anushka Fernandopulle, Board President, has trained in the Buddhist tradition in the US, India and Sri Lanka for over 30 years and teaches retreats and workshops around the world.

John Martin, Board Treasurer, has been devoted to dharma practice since 2001. His practice includes both long retreat practice and an engaged practice in the world. In his teachings, he emphasizes the aliveness of practice in everyday life, as well as the cultivation of the beautiful heart qualities (brahmaviharas).

Howie Cohn, Board Secretary, has led the Mission Dharma sitting group in San Francisco for over 35 years. He has practiced meditation since 1972, has led vipassana retreats in the US and internationally since 1985, and is a senior teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center.

Eugene Cash is the founding teacher of the San Francisco Insight Meditation Community of San Francisco. He teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and leads intensive meditation retreats internationally.

Advisory Board

Ayya Tathaaloka is a Buddhist scholar and Abbess of Dhammadharini Vihara and Aranya Bodhi Hermitage in California.

Pascal Auclair is co-founder of Voie Boréale/True North Insight Meditation in Canada

Bonnie Duran is a Professor at Univ of Washington, faculty at the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute, and a Dharma teacher in Seattle

Gil Fronsdal is the founding teacher of Insight Meditation Center, Redwood City CA. 

Joseph Goldstein is co-founder of Insight Meditation Society in MA.

Jack Kornfield is a founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in CA.

Narayan Helen Liebenson is a Guiding Teacher at Cambridge Insight Meditation Center.

Catherine McGee is a member of the Gaia House Teacher's Council, UK

Sharon Salzberg is a co-founder of Insight Meditation Center in MA

Larry Yang is a Founding Teacher of Insight Community of the Desert in CA

Carol Wilson is a Guiding Teacher at Insight Meditation Society in MA