MFD Teaching Council

Sarah Bryce

Sarah Bryce has been practicing in the Insight Meditation tradition since 1998. She has attended annual silent retreats, at Insight Meditation Society, Spirit Rock, Southern Dharma, and the Forest Refuge. She is currently enrolled in the two-year Meditation Teacher Training with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. She has also been a child, adolescent and adult Psychiatrist in private practice for twenty five years in Durham, NC. She is married to Scott Bryce, and is the mother of three daughters.

Holly Rogers

Holly, the former president of the MFD board, is one of the developers of the Koru Mindfulness program. A psychiatrist at Duke University, she is the co-author of Mindfulness for the Next Generation: Helping Emerging Adults Manage Stress and Lead Healthier Lives. Her newest book, The Mindful Twenty-Something, is a handbook for young adults who wish to learn about mindfulness and meditation. She lives in Durham, NC with her husband, daughter, Great Dane, three chickens, two cats and rabbit.

Mary Brantley

Mary has been teaching in Duke’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program since 2000. She also teaches in the Distance Learning phone Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction classes, and has developed a class based on loving-kindness meditation. In addition she teaches in various research projects at UNC-Chapel Hill in collaboration with Dr. Barbara Fredrickson. She has been practicing meditation for thirty years and attends yearly intensive retreats, many at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA. She has practiced with luminaries, including Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein, Joan Halifax, Thich Nhat Hanh, Rodney Smith and Leigh Brasington, and completed the professional training for Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction by Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli. She is co-author of The Gift of Loving- Kindness: 100 Meditations on Compassion, Forgiveness and Generosity, and until recently, worked as a psychotherapist in private practice (25 years).

John Mader

Introduced to a mantra/prayer practice by his Lutheran mother during his early teens, John was drawn to California for graduate studies in psychotherapy and spirituality. While in the Bay Area, he practiced with wonderful meditation teachers from a range of spiritual traditions. Nearly 30 years ago, he found a home in Tibetan Buddhism and met his teacher, Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, the abbot of Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Monastery in New York. He is a graduate of the KTD Meditation Instructors Program and the director of Karma Thegsum Choling Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Center in Carrboro. He is committed to help others wanting to integrate mindfulness practices into their daily lives with mindfulness-based Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy. He has led the Triangle Area DBT Family Skills Training program since 2004.

Ron Vereen

Ron Vereen is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, and has been practicing mindfulness meditation since 1992. As an instructor in the Duke Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program, he has been teaching mindfulness to others since 1999. He is a graduate of the Community Dharma Leader Program at Spirit Rock, and has completed the Integrated Study and Practice Program of the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. In 2009 he co-founded the Triangle Insight Meditation Community. His principal teacher is Rodney Smith. He has also studied extensively with Shinzen Young, and more recently, Leigh Brasington, Taraniya Ambrosia, Andrew Olendzki, and Narayan Helen Liebenson. His interests include exploring the interface between Western and Buddhist psychology.

Scott Bryce

Scott Bryce has been a psychotherapist and Buddhist practitioner since the mid-1990s, and he continues to explore how these two practices intersect. Previous to becoming involved with Triangle Insight, he served for a number of years as a practice leader with the Eno River Buddhist Community. His principal meditation practices have been Insight Meditation, Insight Dialogue, and Concentration. In addition, he has found great value in sutta study, the precepts, and the five daily reflections. Some of the teachers toward whom he feels particular gratitude are Ayya Sobhana, DaeJa Napier, Gloria Taraniya Ambrosia, Greg Scharf, Greg Kramer, and Leigh Brasington. He also is grateful for Southern Dharma Retreat Center here in North Carolina, and for the study and retreat centers located in Barre, Massachusetts. Scott has lived in Durham since 1984. He is married, with three children and two kids-in-law.