MEET PAMELA

As a little girl, I wanted to be an astronaut or a pop star. I had a keen curiosity and a deep yearning to explore the edges of the known. I also loved putting on my mom’s cast-off dresses and high heels and belting out show tunes with a hairbrush-microphone in hand.

When I was ten, I was diagnosed with diabetes. Living with a chronic illness forced me into the nitty-gritty: counting grams of carbohydrates; titrating insulin syringes; carrying lifesavers in my pocket in case my blood sugar dropped. My body became a battlefield, with clear lines drawn between me and it.

After graduating from Wesleyan University, I landed a job at a health care consulting firm where I sat behind a desk in a grey cubicle, crunched numbers and wrote reports. Although I had the outward signs of success, I quickly became disheartened and world-weary. Having a job and a paycheck did not satisfy my need to understand the world or help me make peace with being embodied.  

In 1987, I knocked on the door of San Francisco Zen Center to learn meditation. I was greeted by a bald man in a long black gown. I found the place odd. But I was moved by the honesty, presence and kindness of the people there. “Whatever it is they’ve got, that’s what I want,” I remember thinking.

So I quit my job and lived for five years at Green Gulch Farm and Tassajara, sitting many (many) long hours in meditation, dicing vegetables, pulling weeds and scrubbing toilets. During that time, I received lay ordination and took Bodhisattva vows.

When I left Zen Center, I carried my vows with me into the world where they have permeated and informed everything I do. I’ve done my best to articulate the heart of the Bodhisattva spirit in accessible, down-to-earth language, and to offer clear principles and practices that address the pressing issues and concerns of our time.

My life has straddled the quiet depths of spiritual life with full engagement in the life of the world—getting married, raising a step-daughter, founding a business, and creating a mindfulness-based group coaching program (the Personal Excellence Program) which has been offered to thousands of people across the globe. I have also been part of an amazing circle of women engaged in intimate, courageous dialogue about race and racism for over a decade. And a few years ago, I rescued and fell in love with my little dog, Grover. (And as anyone who has ever had a dog knows: really, he rescued me.)

Over the years, my spiritual journey has zig-zagged through multiple traditions. In addition to Zen, I’ve sat many (many) long retreats in the Insight tradition, and completed teacher training through Spirit Rock, where I now sit on the Teachers’ Council. I have also been a student of Mahamudra and the Diamond Approach. In 2016, I completed my Zen training, receiving Dharma Transmission from Teah Strozer at the Brooklyn Zen Center. 

Starting in 2023, you are warmly welcome to join my new online Dharma group, Shining Grasses. The term Shining Grasses is drawn from the story of Ling Zhao, daughter of the famed 9th century, Chinese Zen householder, Layman Pang. Through Shining Grasses I will offer teachings on walking the Bodhisattva Path in the midst of everyday life, including: dharma talks, seminars, retreats and practice intensives.