Kate Johnson

When Kate’s not raging at the latest news on her Android phone, she hangs out at the intersections of spiritual practice, social action, and creative expression. Before joining BPF to co-create educational programs, she served as transformational activism coordinator at The Interdependence Project, helping meditators get involved in fair wage and climate justice campaigns, and challenging them to dance battles, though not necessarily in that order. In addition to teaching meditation and mindful movement for people of all ages, Kate facilitates awareness based anti-oppression trainings for schools, businesses and organizations. She recently moved from NYC to Philly, where her wrathful compassion doesn't feel so cramped. She is a graduate of the Community Dharma Leader training and current student in the four year retreat teacher training at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, in the Western Insight/ Theravada Buddhist tradition.

Dawn Haney

Dawn started channeling anger into action at 11 years old, when she spent summer afternoons picking up fast food cups and beer cans from the rural Indiana ditches near her home. For the last decade, she’s been heading up nonprofit organizations and community coalitions dedicated to healing and transformation, on issues such as anti-violence advocacy, immigrant integration, rural LGBTQ visibility, white anti-racism, and now spiritually-informed activism with Buddhist Peace Fellowship. As she’s crisscrossed the country from the Midwest to Georgia then Colorado and now California, one common thread is her love of teaching and community organizing. Rage at a bad breakup first brought her to the dharma in 2002; she now teaches and serves on the leadership team at East Bay Meditation Center’s Alphabet Sangha and is finishing up the 2-year Community Dharma Leaders program with Spirit Rock Meditation Center.

Katie Loncke

Katie’s rage has a mischievous streak, so she delights in protecting land, life, and community by springing effective nonviolent actions on unsuspecting targets. (See: helping to block a Shell oil drilling ship for 48 hours in Portland, Oregon.) When she’s not out fomenting compassionate confrontation, this terminal nerd has likely got her nose in a book about liberation struggles (increasing the rage, but also the resilience). As a Co-Director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship she trains groups nationwide on combining Buddhist ethics with concrete, creative skills for nonviolent resistance. Her writing has appeared in digital and print publications, including the chapter on race and racism in A Thousand Hands: A Guidebook to Caring for Your Buddhist Community (2016, Sumeru Press). Katie loves lemons, cats, warm nights, Black Power, clean water, and the Temptations, even though they’re all impermanent and stuff.