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Senior Teachers
New York is home to many senior teachers in the Shambhala and Buddhist and Dharma Art traditions. We're pleased to share these local teacher profiles.
Sangyum Agness Au
Agness Au's is a Sangyum, a lifelong designation as a personal
representative of the Druk Sakyong. Her Sangyum name is Drukmo Serri,
Dragon Lady Gold Mountain. She is a senior Shambhala Training and Warrior Assembly director, former NYC Shambhala Training resident director, the current Chair of the Shambhala Commission on the Status of Women and Feminine Principle and member of the Sakyong's Council, the Board of Directors for Shambhala International. In recent years,
Agness has developed a curriculum on the inseparable union of the feminine and
masculine principles and teaches workshops internationally. She is a Somu
(First rank) instructor in the Sogetsu School of Ikebana and has taught and
demonstrated for over 20 years. Agness is retired from a 25-year career in
the fashion industry as a design director, cataloger and business owner.
Her businesses were recognized in the industry for market leading innovation
and excellence in the practice of Total Quality Management. Agness lives in Greenwich Village with husband Dan Naistadt and is the mother of two teenaged sons.
John Baker
John grew up in Summit, New Jersey and attended Yale majoring in Chinese Studies and also did graduate work at the University of Chicago. In 1970 John moved to Boulder, Colorado to serve and study with Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. John lived with Rinpoche for a year and a half, during which time he co-founded and ran the Karma Dzong Buddhist Center. In 1973 John co-founded the Naropa Institute and served as its first CEO until 1975. He taught at Naropa until 1978, lecturing on Buddhist psychology and meditation practice and Asian history, philosophy, and religion. He co-edited Trungpa, Rinpoche's Cutting through Spiritual Materialism and The Myth of Freedom and wrote and published articles on Buddhist psychology and meditation.
In 1977 John and his father founded a business providing computer and marketing services to travel agencies worldwide, which he helped run until selling the business in 1999. During the 1990s John also served for the seven years as a board member, treasurer and president of the Boulder County Mental Health Center, delivering mental health services to the chronically mentally ill. John is married to Natalie Nance Baker. He has one daughter.
In 2000 John and Natalie moved to New York to continue their study and practice of Buddhism and the Shambhala teachings, as well as the study and practice of group therapy in the tradition of Modern Psychoanalysis, which they feel enriches their Buddhist/Shambhala practice. John and Natalie currently co-lead two groups at the Shambhala Center on working with the emotions.
John teaches regularly at the Weekly Dharma Gatherings, Tuesday evenings at 7 pm.
Robert Chender
Robert Chender became a student  of the Vidyadhara Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche while in college. He majored in East Asian Studies at Vassar and also attended Harvard, where he wrote his senior thesis on the history of Buddhism in China; he also has a degree from the NYU School of Law. He has been a meditation instructor, teacher, and Shambhala Training director for more than twenty-five years. He has served on the Shambhala Center Board of Directors since its inception, and was chairman of the Board from 2000 until 2005. He and his wife Amy have two sons in college and live in Westchester County. Robert is a lawyer.
Dolores Katz
Dolores Katz has been a Buddhist/Shambhala practitioner since 1975. She is a senior teacher of both Shambhala and Buddhist studies, and has held posts as co-Director of Study and Practice at Karmê Chöling, Chicago Shambhala Center and of co-Resident Director of Shambhala Training at the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York. The importance of teacher training and education in both Shambhala and Buddhist traditions is her focus. She is a consultant in both public education, and works in private practice
as an Educational Therapist.
Derek Kolleeny
 Derek was began the practice and study of Buddhism in 1976 and became a student of Trungpa Rinpoche. After graduating from high school in 1977, he attended his first Naropa Institute summer session. He earned a B.A. from Harvard College, where he studied Buddhism, including Tibetan and Sanskrit languages. Derek was the assistant coordinator of the six-month US tour of HH the XVIth Gyalwa Karmapa in 1980. He attended Vajradhatu Seminary and Kalapa Assembly in 1981 at Lake Louise, in Alberta, Canada. In 1982, he joined the Nalanda Translation Committee. He worked at Vajradhatu from 1982 through 1986, serving in the Department of External Affairs, working on hosting of visiting teachers, as Buddhist News Editor for the Vajradhatu Sun and on the Lumbini Project. In 1987 he moved to NYC and earned an MBA from Columbia Business School in 1989. In 1999 he became a founding member of the Board of Directors of The Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center (www.tbrc.org), which is dedicated to preserving Tibetan Buddhist literature, creating a massive database to access this treasury and making it available worldwide through the Internet. In 2001, Derek joined the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York Board and became the Head of Practice and Study. He recently served as CFO for the Greyston Foundation for eight years, and is now VP Finance for the International Trachoma Initiative.
Jane Kolleeny
Jane Kolleeny has been teaching Buddhism and Shambhala Training since the late 1970's. Originally from Boulder, Colorado, she taught at Karma Dzong in Boulder for many years, shortl after it was founded by the Vidyadhara, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in the early seventies. She worked as an administrator at Naropa University, as an editor at Shambhala Publications and also as managing editor of the Shambhala Sun during these years in Boulder. In the mid-eighties, she moved to New York and began teaching at the New York Shambhala Center. Jane serves as Chairperson for the Board of Directors of the New York Shambhala Center. She works as an editor for Architectural Record magazine and lives in Sleepy Hollow, New York, with her husband and two Siberian huskies
Dan Naistadt
Dan Naistadt began his study of Buddhism at Columbia College in the early seventies - becoming a student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche several years later. Over the years, Dan has served the New York Shambhala Center in a number of different contexts, including fundraising, administration and teaching. He has been a Shambhala Training Director for twenty years. Dan is a co-founder of Sky Lake Lodge and serves on its Board of Directors. He is a principal of Turtle Map Strategy Advisors, a manage-ment consulting firm and also serves as the Interim Executive Director of Sky Lake Lodge. Dan is married to Sangyum Agness Au and has two teenage sons.
David Nichtern
A long-time teacher, Mr. Nichtern has been involved with Shambhala Buddhism and Shambhala Training since they were first offered by Tibetan meditation master Chögyam Trungpa in the 1970s. He has served as co-director of Karme-Choling Meditation Center in Vermont.
David is a songwriter, record producer, guitarist, and composer for film and television. Three-time Emmy award-winner and two-time Grammy-nominated composer, he is perhaps best known for his hit song, Midnight at the Oasis .
In 1998, David began working with his wife Cyndi Lee, the well-known yoga teacher and founder of the OM Yoga Center in New York City, to compose music to accompany her classes. He recently teamed up with master banshuri flute player Steve Gorn to create the band Drala has now established several recording labels of his own, including Dharma Moon , which produces music for the celebration of mind, body and spirit.
 Jack Niland
Jack’s art life started at Cooper Union where he became a hippie. In the summer of 1970 he met Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Dharma Art instantly became his path. Jack worked on designs for many of the visual elements of Shambhala, including the banners hanging in our Centers today. In the early years of the Naropa Institute Jack taught Visual Dharma, and then applied the Dharma Art principles to the commercial world of high fashion. Currently he is working with Three Kayas to radiate these teachings throughout the world.
Elizabeth Reid
Elizabeth is a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition. Intrigued by the similarities between her acting training and meditation, she studied Chögyam Trungpa's teachings on dharma art.
She began teaching in 1991 and has been an active director of Shambhala Training since that time. A photographer and entrepreneur, she has led contemplative photography field trips since 2000, and has been co-designer of a handbag line incorporating her photo images. Elizabeth is a featured teacher at the Weekly Dharma Gatherings ,Tuesdays 7pm
Jeff Rubin
While attending Lehigh University in the early 70’s, Jeff became fascinated with the study of awakened mind as espoused by Far Eastern religions and philosophies, and began to meditate. Soon after, he met Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche and was astonished to encounter the embodiment of what he had been studying. He became Trungpa’s student and an early member of the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York (then called Dharmadhatu). Jeff has been a meditation instructor, teacher, and Shambhala Training director for over 25 years.
Contracting a mysterious illness in the mid 90’s, Jeff became interested in the teachings on “bringing illness to the path.” He is a member of Karuna Talk, a Shambhala-sponsored online forum dedicated toward experiencing illness as a source of awakening and compassion. In his professional life, Jeff is a principal of The Usability Group, a consulting firm that provides customized research and expertise in human behavior to the design of its clients’ technology products and services.
Jeff is married to Halice Rubin, and has three delightful children, two of whom are out of the house and finding their way in the world.
John Sennhauser
John Sennhauser is an attorney whose involvement with Shambhala began in the 1970s when he moved to Boulder, Colorado to study theater and dance at Naropa University. There he met Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and became his student. He is currently the chairman of the Shambhala Trust and continues to perform from time to time.
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