Lama Karma (Justin Wall) has been teaching since 2007, both as a facilitator of mindfulness and as a Lama in the Karma Kagyu and Shangpa Kagyu Lineages. He graduated with honors from Columbia University with degrees in English Literature and Religious Studies.

He completed two three-year retreats at Kagyu Thubten Chöling Monastery under Lama Norlha Rinpoche and one six-month retreat at Shangpa Karma Ling under Lama Denys Rinpoche, including more than a month of dark retreat.

His other teachers include Tai Situ Rinpoche, Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche, Mingyur Rinpoche, and Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.

He completed a year-long certification course in Mindfulness Facilitation through the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA, and 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 and the Eight Movements of Yantra Yoga.

He is the spiritual director of Milarepa Retreat Center, and founded the eco-dharma Earth Vase Pilgrimage project in the Smoky Mountain and Blue Ridge Mountain region.  He is also a founding board member of the Lotus Light Contemplative Community Center in Knoxville, Tennessee.

You can find out more about his teaching schedule and programs on his website.

Karina is a student of Lama Tsültrim Allione and Chögyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche. Karina is also a psychotherapist and healer, integrating somatic therapy with contemplative modalities drawn from Buddhist wisdom, sound therapy, and indigenous healing practices. Through developing the healing power of presence, she helps people unveil authentic insight and their inherent capacity for compassion. Since 2013, she has worked with women, families, and elders, and is the co-founder of Wisdom Care, an organization devoted to serving elder women.

She holds MSSW from The University of Tennessee, and is in training as a Somatic Experiencing®practitioner. She is a Compassion Teacher in Practicum from Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research, and she facilitates the Feeding Your Demons® protocol developed by Lama Tsültrim Allione. She holds an MBA and has studied psychology, religion, and social entrepreneurship. She was also the co-founder of the Sound Collective of NYC.

Her work has focused on caring for those most neglected in society. She is passionate about issues of social justice, especially in the context of empowering women, mothers, and elders. Karina has also worked with the integration of psychedelic-assisted therapy and other intuitive methods of helping clients process trauma. In addition to using the sounds of indigenous instruments and Eastern voice practices, Karina continually seeks to explore new modalities of bringing healing awareness to individual, social, and environmental forms of suffering.

Arek completed three-year retreat in February 2020 at Palpung Thubten Chöling monastery (formely Kagyu Thubten Chöling) in Wappingers Falls, New York, first under the direction of Lama Norlha Rinpoche and later Lama Tsering.

Prior to entering the retreat Arek was a professional designer and photographer in New York City for over 20 years.

He graduaded from The Cooper Union with a degree in fine arts.

President

Jeffrey was born and raised in New Orleans and has worked as an interpreter, teacher, counselor, and researcher in the field of Sign Language/Deaf Studies for the past 25+ years. He has a bachelor’s degree in Exceptional Student Education, graduate degrees in Linguistics and in Teaching English as a Second language, and a Ph.D. in Educational Linguistics. He has been a nationally certified (CSC, CI & CT, and SC:L) interpreter since 1976 and has been an interpreter educator since 1979.  He has developed and taught extensive undergraduate and graduate coursework in Education of the Deaf, Sign Language/Deaf Studies, Linguistics, and Interpreting. Jeff also presents topics nationally on a variety of topics. Currently, Dr. Davis is a professor of ASL Linguistics and Interpreting in the Educational Interpreting Program, Department of Theory and Practice in Teacher Education at the University of Tennessee.  When he is not teaching or interpreting, Jeff enjoys traveling, practicing yoga, hiking in the mountains, gourmet cooking, and spending time in the great outdoors. 

Jeffrey has been a student of the Dharma for over thirty years. He lives adjacent to the retreat center and is inexhaustibly generous with his time, land, and devotion. 

Vice President

Douglas Cox was raised on farms and small towns in East Tennessee.  Beginning at 17, he served four years in the U.S. Airforce as an intelligence specialist, including time in Japan where he visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Profoundly moved by this experience he switched from targeting cities for nuclear strikes to becoming an advocate for peaceful means of conflict resolution. He has a BA from Maryville College in psychology and philosophy and a doctorate in psychology from the University of Tennessee.  He spent five years setting up health clinics in medically underserved communities and later worked for 25 years in organizational development.  For the past five years he has served as a psychologist to patients scheduled for metabolic and other surgeries. He helped found Chestnut Tops Community, Foothills Community Development Corporation, the local chapter of Veterans for Peace and the E-Group, an organizational consulting firm. A former resident of Happy Valley, he currently lives nearby in Chestnut Tops. Doug has four grown children and five grandchildren.

Treasurer

A native Heart Lander from Knoxville, TN, AH found her centering focus in meditation practice that evolved and supported her path as a mother of two, Life/Shadow Coach, and Tara fanatic. As her life journeys through its many winding roads, she enjoys building and supporting communities that support the realization of the conjoined heart. 

Doctor Bacon received his Doctorate in Ethology, specializing in behavior of Black Bears at University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is retired from almost thirty years as manager and part owner of South’s Finest Chocolate Factory in downtown Knoxville. He has been on the Board of Directors of the Great Smoky Mountains Association for 32 years, and is also a board member of the Association for Partners of Public Lands. He is a founding member, treasurer and volunteer executive director of Katmai Conservancy, Alaska. He lives adjacent to the retreat center in Happy Valley, and has given generously of his time, land and resources to the vision of Lama Norlha Rinpoche and MOCD.

Since finding the dharma in 2000, Traci has gratefully studied and meditated with teachers who hold the Tibetan Buddhist lineages, aspiring each day to embody the translation of their blessings to the west. A background in education, mental health, social work, and non-profit management inform her practice with the sangha as we seek together to implement the most skillful means to reduce suffering, serve in whatever capacity is needed, and make the most of this brief and precious human existence.

Tom is a retired rocket scientist, long time resident of Knoxville and has served as Treasurer and Secretary on the board of our sister sangha, Losel Shedrup Ling, for 8 years and manages events at the Lotus Light Contemplative Community Center in Knoxville. 

Pete Eby is a systems architect for the R&D Systems Engineering (RDSE) team at Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL). Currently he also supports DOE participation in CERN’s ALICE project. Additionally, he works with the Atmospheric Radiation Monitoring (ARM) project, a DOE multi-laboratory, scientific user facility, and a key contributor to national and international climate research efforts

The roots of his spiritual adolescence grew deeply from remote Colorado, Montana, and Alaskan wilderness, their springs and shadows mingling for a few years within the waning myth of Berkeley of the Rockies. A high school student by day, but all other times a student of Coven Gardens, the Golden Dawn, Perl Street prophets, artists, punks and western esotericism —  fueled always by hope of what lies behind the glare — he devoured Crowley, Castenada, Regardie, Knight and Hubbard hunting the True Source. Blessed with exceptional teachers, for some years he blended high ceremonialism, qabalah, and enochian practices with natural magic, shamanism, and the quasi-new religions. Mostly avoiding the ocean of conspiracy currents, UFO cults, and militant pseudo-Buddhist tangents he diverted attention for a time to computer science studies. The alchemy of kernel calls and daemons eventually found a niche at a national lab, but one without rockets. Currents eventually turned the wheel, recolliding with esotericism this time looking east beyond the dawn. Meeting exceptional teachers in the Tibetan Vajrayana traditions he found a comfortably familiar landscape of unknowable contradictions. The wilderness and open beckoned again. He’s currently out somewhere behind the center and the edge.
L.V.X

Kim is a widow, an animal lover, a neighbor and a friend. She is a hiker, a gardener, an environmentalist, a Buddhist, a mom, and a grandmother. Kim is a retired wetland biologist from TVA and continues to work as steward of our land.

Jon Boggs is a Midwest expat in Knoxville, where he has resided since 2012 with his wife and son, Torrie and Jared. He is an editor with the University of Tennessee Press and an independent publisher with Are Not Books.