2024 Guides
Each year we invite a group Tergar Instructors and Facilitators to serve as guides for our retreat programs. Read below to learn about the guides for our 2024 programs. If your are interested in becoming a meditation teacher check out the Tergar Meditation Teacher Training Program.
Antonia Sumbundu
Antonia Dorthea Sumbundu is an Instructor for the Tergar Meditation Community, clinical psychologist, and mental health specialist. She has been practicing meditation for over 35 years and has the good fortune to practice and study with many great teachers including Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, Chokling Rinpoche, and Tsoknyi Rinpoche. In 2002 she met Mingyur Rinpoche and began to receive teachings from him. She leads retreats, teaches, and supports practice groups internationally. Antonia’s long-term interest in psychology and the application of meditation to enhance mental health has led to her passion for bridging worlds: dharma & psychology, Buddhist wisdom & contemporary science, to name a few.
She holds an MA from the University of Copenhagen, and a Master of Studies in MBCT from the University of Oxford.
Myoshin Kelley
At a young age, Myoshin decided that school could not teach her what she wanted to know and decided that life would be her teacher. This led her to a lifelong journey of living in spiritual communities while exploring the inner terrain of being human.
Myoshin received dharma instruction from renowned Buddhist teachers Chanmyay Sayadaw, Sayadaw U Pandita, Sayadaw U Tejaniya, and Hogen Yamahata. She also developed a great love of retreats and at one point temporarily ordained as a nun in Myanmar.
Myoshin’s training as a meditation teacher began with Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in 1994. She was appointed the teacher in residence at the Forest Refuge, the long-term practice center at IMS, in 2003.
In 1998, Myoshin was introduced to Mingyur Rinpoche. Twelve years later she moved to Minneapolis to help Rinpoche and others with the formation of Tergar Meditation Community. For a decade she led the team to oversee the formation of Tergar meditation groups and the training of Tergar community leaders. As a Tergar instructor, Myoshin leads programs that experientially explore how the practice of meditation and the wisdom of an open heart support the path of awakening.
Nature has been a strong teacher and support for Myoshin throughout her life. She loves to do solitary retreats in nature as well as hike, bike, cross-country ski, and now swim in the ocean on the beautiful Sapphire Coast in Australia, where she lives with her husband Edwin.
Jess McNally
Jess McNally has devoted much of her adult life to practicing and studying Buddhism. After completing both a Bachelor and a Master of Science degree in Earth Systems at Stanford University, she moved to Zen Mountain Monastery near New York, where she lived and trained for over three years. During that time she completed over forty week-long silent retreats (sesshins).
In 2015, she decided to pursue Tibetan Buddhism and was ordained as a monastic by Thrangu Rinpoche. She met Mingyur Rinpoche shortly afterward at Tergar Monastery in Bodhgaya, India. Under his guidance, she completed a series of solitary retreats in Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo’s cave in the Himalayas, including a 5-month retreat over winter. Since 2016, Jess has also been a student of Tsoknyi Rinpoche. In 2018, Jess chose to return to lay life and her hometown of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Jess serves as a Senior Tergar Facilitator and host for online Tergar retreats and workshops. She also runs her own web design business. In her downtime, she loves to go on adventures outside with her dog Pema, sing and cook.
Fionnuala Shenpen Daffy
Fionnuala has studied and practiced Buddhism since meeting her main teachers Tsoknyi Rinpoche and Mingyur Rinpoche in Kathmandu in 1999. She has received teachings from many other Nyingma and Kagyu masters and completed a traditional four-year retreat under Pema Wangyal Rinpoche in France.
Fionnuala lived in Nepal for fifteen years. From 2003–2005 she lived at Osel Ling Monastery, continued her studies of Tibetan language and Buddhist philosophy, and assisted the Gompa Manager Lama Tashi. She accompanied Tsoknyi Rinpoche on the trip to Nangchen Tibet that resulted in the documentary Blessings. From 2013–2020, at Tsoknyi Rinpoche’s request, she set up and ran a school at Tsoknyi Gechak Ling, Kathmandu. Keeping Buddhist ethics at the core she incorporated learner-centered teaching methods to create a high-quality educational experience for young nuns. In 2016 Fionnuala started a Tergar group in Boudha, Kathmandu, with friends, and she is now starting groups at home in Ireland.
Fionnuala lives in Mountshannon on the banks of Lough Derg and enjoys swimming, kayaking, and growing vegetables in the community garden.
Kell Julliard
Kell Julliard has a master’s degree in Expressive Therapy from the University of Louisville and a Master of Fine Arts in Dramatic Direction from the University of Arizona. With academic appointments at several universities including New York University School of Medicine, for twenty-five years he mentored medical and dental residents in learning about, designing, and implementing clinical research. He is certified as a mindfulness teacher through the International Mindfulness Teachers Association.
Kell has studied intensively and done retreats with Mingyur Rinpoche since the founding of Tergar International in 2009. Over the course of his life, he has practiced deeply in other meditation traditions, including Sufism, Qabalah, shamanism, and Christianity.
Kell has served as a practice leader for Tergar since 2009, as a facilitator for Joy of Living programs since 2013, and as a mentor for Tergar groups in the northeastern US. He also teaches meditation regularly for Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.
Kell lives with his husband in Shutesbury, Massachusetts. He enjoys playing classical chamber music on pipe organ and flute, painting icons, and spending time in nature.