About Us
The Path of Awakening (formerly New York Buddha Dharma and Westchester Buddhist Center) is an online Buddhist meditation center founded by John Baker, a student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
Scroll down to learn more about our meditation teachers
Our Mission
The mission of The Path of Awakening Buddhist Center is to further the practices and teachings of the Tibetan Kagyü and Nyingma traditions, especially as transmitted by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and his students. Other teachers will present, including visiting Rinpoches as well as seasoned student/practitioners. It is also the purpose of the center to provide a community of friends with whom to share and tread the path.
Meditation Teachers
John Baker
Founder, Meditation Instructor and Co-teacher of the online Buddhist Path of Awakening Course
A close student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, John has been a practitioner and teacher of Buddhism for 49 years. He coedited Trungpa’s Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism and The Myth of Freedom and is the author of various articles. John is the co-founder and a principal teacher at the Westchester Buddhist Center in Irvington and the New York Buddha Dharma Center in Manhattan. He also co-founded Naropa University, serving as its CEO for the first three years of its existence and as head of the Buddhist Studies program for five years. John also serves individuals as a life and executive coach. He has 23 years experience in business, selling the company he founded to a Fortune 500 firm.
Contact: john@pathofawakeningbuddhistcenter.org
Books (co-edited by John): The Myth of Freedom , Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
Laura Read
Meditation Instructor and Co-teacher of the online Buddhist Path of Awakening Course
Laura Read, Ph.D. has been a student of John Baker’s since 2011, a meditation instructor since 2014 and a teacher of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s work since 2017. Laura also worked for many years as a psychologist, research scientist and assistant professor at NYU Department of Psychiatry and Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research. She currently supervises students training in a Focus-Oriented Therapy program and has an on-going interest in the intersection between Buddhism, addiction and right and left brain processing.
Barry Cunningham
Meditation Instructor and Co-teacher of the online Buddhist Path of Awakening Course
Barry Cunningham was introduced to Buddhist study and practice at the New York Shambhala Center in 1995.Inspired by the teachings of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Tibetan Buddhism in general, he completed all of the Shambhala training levels in New York before moving to Westchester in 1999.He became involved with the Westchester Buddhist Center shortly after its founding in 2009 and participated in every Buddhist study course offered there, which included meditation instructor and teacher training programs. Subsequently, Barry was approved to teach meditation and Buddhist doctrine.Experience in group and solitary retreats fueled Barry’s inspiration to convey the teachings which he has done since 2015, providing individual meditation instruction, short dharma talks in a variety of settings, and co-teaching with John Baker for Westchester Buddhist Center and Path of Awakening Buddhist Center.Barry lives in Irvington NY. Barry and is currently completing his ngöndro, the Vajrayana “preliminary” practices.
Contact: barry@pathofawakeningbuddhistcenter.org
Michael Kern
Meditation Instructor and Co-teacher of the online Buddhist Path of Awakening Course
Meditate with us mornings and evenings on Zoom
If you would like meditation or tonglen instruction, It is offered in the mornings and at other times by arrangement.
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