Mountain Stream Teachers Council

Mountain Stream has an active Teachers Council that meets frequently to discuss our overall teaching programs. The council includes Adam Stonebraker, Maeve Hassett, Ken Bradford, Dennis Warren, Bruce Pardoe, Constance Washburn, and Gavrila Nikhila. Each teacher has extensive training and teaching experience that they bring to our community.

Maeve Hassett
Maeve has been practicing and studying the Dharma since 1993 under the guidance and support of her primary teacher John Travis. She is a graduate of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Community Dharma Leaders Program and Dedicated Practitioners Programs. She has been teaching meditation classes since 2003. She co-leads the Auburn Insight Meditation Group, and also co-founded and co-leads the Rocklin Meditation Group, and frequently offers dharma talks in Auburn, Rocklin, and Nevada City. Maeve also practices as a psychotherapist using mind/body awareness and Buddhist philosophy as guiding principles in her work with individuals.
You can contact Maeve at maeve@mtstream.org.

Ken Bradford
Ken is a contemplative yogin, author and Dharma teacher integrating a wide arc of Buddhist, Dzogchen and psychological thought and practice. His heart teachers include Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, Joseph Goldstein, Ruth Denison and Tsoknyi Rinpoche, among others. Formerly, he maintained a psychotherapy practice in the San Francisco Bay area and was Adjunct Professor at John F. Kennedy University and CIIS. His publications include Opening Yourself: The Psychology and Yoga of Self-liberation (2021); The I of the Other: Mindfulness-Based Diagnosis & the Question of Sanity (2013); and Listening from the Heart of Silence: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy, Vol. 2 (2007, with John Prendergast); as well as numerous peer-reviewed articles intertwining psychology and spirituality. Website: www.authenticpresence.net

Dennis Warren
Dennis is the founding teacher of Sacramento Insight Meditation. He has been teaching in community and retreat settings for over 20 years. This includes guiding and teaching two month-long pilgrimages in Thailand, India and Nepal. He served as an adjunct clinical professor in the Division of Pain Medicine at the UC Davis School of Medicine for more than a decade focusing on the use of contemplative practices for working with physical, emotional and psychological suffering. 

Bruce Pardoe
Bruce has been offering Dharma talks at Mountain Stream since 2010 and leading the 6-week Insight Meditation & Mindfulness Course series twice a year since 2011. He is a graduate of the 2-year Community Dharma Leadership training at Spirit Rock and has sat numerous 1 to 3-month long retreats. All combined, Bruce has spent over two years in silence and has developed essential insights into the teachings of the Buddha. You can contact Bruce at bpardoe@heartfluency.com

Constance Washburn, MA
Constance is a facilitator, educator, and community organizer. She co-directs the Spiral Journey, a Facilitator Development Program in the Work That Reconnects, and is a founding member of the Weavers Team of the Work That Reconnects Network. She has studied with Joanna Macy since 1994, practiced Zen since 1968, and has been part of the Vipassana community at Spirit Rock Meditation Center since 1984. She is also a community dharma leader in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition under Lama Palden. A founding member of the Elders Action Network, Constance developed and facilitates their Empowered Elder Workshop, and is a trainer of the Community Resilience Model through the Trauma Resources Institute. Earlier in her career, she spent nearly 20 years as Education Director at the Marin Agricultural Land Trust and Marin Organic, and taught and directed multicultural theater companies. She holds an MA in Education and Theater.

Gavrila Nikhila Abramson
Gavrila is a daughter and sister, a devoted dhamma practitioner, a singer, poet and contemplative dreamer. Getting to know grief and the complexity of being human led her to study suffering and its end, bringing her to teach mindfulness over the last decade and step into the role of somatic psychotherapist. Having the great benefit of working with folks of all ages, identities, and ancestry, Gavrila knows that embodiment and mindfulness can be accessible to all and is devoted to finding the entry point for each unique person. Guided by the cultivation of awareness, the unfolding of ancestral wisdom, and the honoring of innate wholeness, Gavrila collaborates with those seeking transformation. As a trained somatic psychotherapist, she is part of the growing community bringing touch into psychotherapy as means to healing developmental trauma, as well as offering Somatic Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy. As co-founder of the Trauma Aware Mindfulness Collective and mentee of David Treleaven, Gavrila trains and facilitates mindfulness with the global trauma-sensitive mindfulness community. She teaches meditation to youth at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and Inward Bound Meditation. Gavrila feels deeply supported and protected by the dhamma, and expresses her devotion as a teacher for various in-person and virtual sanghas. For more on Gavrila's therapeutic work visit connectedrootstherapy.com. For more on her available trainings and writing, visit wholecompleteperfect.com