David Chernikoff

DAVID CHERNIKOFF began practicing yoga and meditation in 1971, after which his life story reads like a greatest-hits of modern spiritual teachers. He trained as a yoga teacher with Swami Satchidananda, studied with Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and deepened his commitment to meditation practice with Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, and Sharon Salzberg. This led him to begin teaching insight meditation in the late 1980s. He was also greatly influenced by Ram Dass, whose teaching inspired him to work with dying people at the Dying Center in Santa Fe and in hospice programs. Because of his passion for interspiritual dialogue, he met and was mentored by Father Thomas Keating for many years, and worked closely with Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi at the Spiritual Eldering Institute. Chernikoff trained with Thrangu Rinpoche and other Tibetan teachers during a three-year stay in Nepal, and then returned to the U.S. to begin a long stint of teaching in the transpersonal psychology program at Naropa University in Boulder. During that time, he became one of the guiding teachers of the Insight Meditation Community of Colorado. Currently, he teaches retreats and workshops throughout the U.S. and has a private practice as a spiritual counselor and life coach. For more information, please see www.davidchernikoff.com.