Jaya Rudgard began meditating in the 1980s. After graduating in Classics from Oxford University she qualified as a lawyer but chose to leave a career in commercial law to spend eight years living in community as a Buddhist nun under the guidance of Ajahn Sumedho and the Thai Forest Tradition. She later trained to teach Insight Meditation with Jack Kornfield at Spirit Rock and Joseph Goldstein at Insight Meditation Society in the US. An experienced teacher of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC), Jaya leads retreats for the Oxford Mindfulness Centre and the UK’s Mindfulness Network. She is a faculty member of Bodhi College and a regular teacher at Gaia House in the UK as well as IMS and Spirit Rock. Other passions include spending time in wilderness and the study of qigong–both of which she enjoys integrating into her teaching when circumstances permit.