Working to support people and ecosystems to thrive

Hi. I’m Lama Liza.

I grew up in Northern Illinois in a small city surrounded by corn fields and soybeans. Upon graduating high school, I was excited to take a road trip out west in search of communities that felt like my people. Instead, I was heartbroken to find open pit mines, large dams across rivers, endless big box stores and fast food chains, and a legendary sacred area in Arizona trampled by human footsteps and new age shops. What was happening in this world? This led me to study environmental science and then focus on botany, ecology, and conservation. People who liked plants had a quality about them that I was drawn to. I tried yoga while at university in Vancouver, BC, and discovered a sense of presence that felt like home, a sense of okayness that I didn’t experience in other parts of my life at the time. After university, I spent a month studying yoga in southern Baja, glamping beside the Pacific Ocean with vast star-filled skies and whales migrating by. It was here that I discovered the spiritual path and knew this was the thread I would follow in my life.

I am so grateful to have found Lee Joseph and his school, the Pacific Center for Awareness and Bodywork, on the island of Kauai. During this 6-month program, I deeply healed and discovered many incredible healing modalities. Amidst the framework of structural bodywork, we learned Hakomi tools (body-based psychotherapy), meditation, many dyad and triad exercises, and group sharing that opened the heart and helped heal in ways I hadn’t known were possible. I stayed as a teaching assistant and then a teacher.

In 2011, I went to Nepal and India to learn about Tibetan Buddhism and be in the spiritual practices of that land. I spent 10 months attending retreats and teachings, trekking in the Himalayas, and traveling to different towns. India stirred the pot, bringing all of the sludge to the surface, and also was filled with a spiritual light that was so inspiring. I returned to the United States, broken yet also knowing a truth in what I was following. I ended up in Portland, Oregon, where I attended a weekend teaching on the Seven Points of Mind Training at a Tibetan Buddhist center down the road. That first night, hearing teachings on the nature of the mind, I knew I had come home.

One year later, they were beginning a traditional three-year, three-month meditation retreat at the retreat center they had built near Goldendale, Washington. After a deep inquiry to see if I was running away, I decided to join the retreat. I had 6 months to take apart my life, raise $50k, and prepare to enter a cloistered retreat for three years. Miraculously, it all came together, and in April 2015, eleven retreatants entered into retreat. We had the same schedule every day from 4:00 AM to 9:30 PM, with mostly individual practice in our cabins and two group practices each day. About every month, we rotated through the main practices passed down through the Shangpa Lineage for 1000 years. It was an incredible blessing and very hard. I am so grateful to have been able to practice so deeply and so fully for such a long period of time.

Upon completing the retreat in 2018, I was kindly invited to stay at a dharma center in southern Oregon for 6 months as a transition place. It was a precious connection, and I am honored to have been asked to teach here, eventually becoming an Associate Lama and sharing the dharma for 4 years. I longed to live on land and also struggled with the intense effects of climate change in the Rogue Valley. I fell in love with Corbett, Oregon, east of Portland, and was delighted to take a job with the dharma center in Portland that had facilitated my three-year retreat. I worked as the Executive Director for 1.5 years, learning that I love facilitating meetings and moving projects forward. Being unable to teach felt like an essential part of myself was being shut down, so I decided to transition out of the job and begin a Master’s in Counseling through Prescott College. I am excited to be learning a variety of counseling tools and to have the opportunity to work with a wide diversity of clients.

While in southern Oregon, I wanted to do more to help with climate change and ecosystem destruction. I began leading weekly meditations called Tonglen for Climate Change on YouTube. This website is an expansion of that practice, bringing together tonglen with other training modalities to share the wonderful gifts of meditation and dharma practice. I’m glad you are here.

Have a question? Want to learn more?

  • Visit the Meditation page for information about meditation and guided practices.

  • Visit the Resources page for links to additional resources about meditation and climate change.

  • Visit the Consultations page to schedule a meeting to discuss practice questions.

  • Feel free to send me an email anytime with practice questions or requests for teachings or guided practices on specific topics.