Our Teachers - Lotus Light Center

Our Teachers & Facilitators

Lama Karma

Community Dharma Teacher

Tibetan Buddhist Lama/Mindfulness Facilitator

Justin Wall (Lama Karma) has over twelve years of teaching experience, both as a facilitator of mindfulness training through Clear Light Mindfulness and in more traditional contexts. He graduated with honors from Columbia University with degrees in English Literature and Religious Studies and completed two three-year retreats and one six-month retreat in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. He completed a year-long certification course in Mindfulness Facilitation through the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA, which is a partner of the Norman Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology within the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. He is also an accredited facilitator of the 8-week Open Mindfulness Training through the Altruistic Open Mindfulness Network, as well as the Tibetan Inner Yoga Training. He is the spiritual director of the Milarepa Retreat Center in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, and founded the eco-dharma Earth Vase Pilgrimage project in the Smoky and Blue Ridge Mountain region. He is also a founding board member of Lotus Light.

Acharya Abhaya Darpana

Rev. Dustin Davis

Abhaya is ordained as a Dharmacharya in the Embracing Simplicity Contemplative Order under Venerables Pannavati and Pannadipa and is an affiliated teacher at Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center where he trained. His primary practices of Satipaṭṭhāna (4 Establishings of Mindfulness) in the style offered by Bhikkhu Anālayo, Ānāpānasati (Breath Based Mindfulness), and the Brahma Vihāras (Heavenly Abidings) spring from an affinity for the approaches offered in Early Buddhism. He also has an appreciation for the later traditions, having undertaken Vajrayāna and Zen retreats including formally receiving the 5 Mindfulness Trainings from Thích Nhất Hạnh in 2013.

Having worked over 25 years in the hospital critical care setting, he brings his intimacy with the illness, death, and dying processes to bear in Dharma sharing. He is also passionate about Dharma as a central support for dealing with addictions of all kinds.

Abhaya’s spiritual journey includes being raised Catholic and attending elementary parochial school with Nuns as teachers, then diving deeply into Full Gospel Protestant teachings, and later involvement with Unitarian Universalism. He committed to the path of Dharma in 2010.

He has two lovely grown daughters, and an amazing canine companion named Bodhi who has served as a therapy dog in hospitals, nursing homes & addiction treatment facilities through the University of Tennessee’s Human Animal Bond in Tennessee (HABIT) program.

For more information or to schedule an individual consultation visit: satigiri.com or facebook.com/SatigiriSangha

Deborah Eden Tull

Community Teacher

Dharma Teacher/Mindfulness and Ecodharma Facilitator

Eden Tull is the founder of Mindful Living Revolution, teaching the integration of compassionate awareness into every aspect of life. She is a Zen meditation and mindfulness teacher, public speaker, author, activist, and sustainability educator. She trained for seven years as a Buddhist monastic at a silent Zen monastery in Northern California, and she has been traveling to, living in, and teaching about conscious and sustainable communities internationally for the last 25 years. She currently resides in Black Mountain, NC and offers workshops, retreats, and consultations nationally. Her new book, Relational Mindfulness, explores the exciting and transformative dimension of relational practice.

Visiting Teachers and Instructors

Lama Lena

Visiting Dharma Teacher

Lama Inge