Ruth Denison

Ruth Denison was a German-born American meditation teacher and one of the few Westerners authorised to teach by the Burmese lay master Sayagyi U Ba Khin. She taught at the Insight Meditation Society from its first year, founded the Dhamma Dena retreat centre in the California desert near Joshua Tree, and was, according to IMS, the first Buddhist teacher in the United States to lead an all-women meditation retreat.

Childhood in East Prussia and the war

She was born on 29 September 1922 and grew up on a farm in East Prussia, then part of Germany. Her official obituary says that as a young woman she barely survived the abuse and hardship that followed the Second World War.

Hollywood and the search for teachers

After emigrating to California she married Henry Denison, a spiritual seeker and former monk in the Advaita Vedanta tradition. Through the 1960s and 1970s the couple hosted lectures and workshops in their Hollywood home, led by figures such as Alan Watts, Aldous and Laura Huxley and Timothy Leary, and travelled to Asia and Europe to study with teachers. According to the obituary, the teacher who influenced her most deeply was Charlotte Selver, the creator of the Sensory Awareness training.

In 1960 she and her husband set out to experience other approaches to meditation. They spent time at Zen monasteries in Japan and travelled on through the Philippines, Hong Kong and Singapore to Burma. She later studied Zen more seriously, spending a year in Japan in the mid-1960s training with Yamada Roshi, Soen Roshi and Yasutani Roshi. The obituary adds that she helped establish the Southern California Zen centres founded by Sasaki Roshi and Maezumi Roshi.

Authorised by U Ba Khin

She described what happened in Burma in an interview given while she was teaching at IMS in 1996, now published on the Dhamma Dena website. She first practised at Mahasi Sayadaw's monastery, then went to U Ba Khin's meditation centre, where he became her teacher. U Ba Khin emphasised awareness of bodily sensations, and she described her practice there as a breakthrough.

Visa restrictions limited that first stay to about three months, and she returned to Burma three or four times for short visits. She recalled that U Ba Khin gave transmission to teach to only four or five Westerners, and that she was the only woman among them; he gave her a formal letter as her authorisation.

The obituary describes her as one of U Ba Khin's Western Dharma heirs, alongside S. N. Goenka, and IMS calls her one of only four Westerners he permitted to teach. Spirit Rock Meditation Center describes her as U Ba Khin's "most prominent Western student". His lineage continues today in the International Meditation Centres and in Goenka's courses.

Teaching at IMS and Spirit Rock

Denison led courses at the Insight Meditation Society from the year it opened, 1976, until her last visit to its Retreat Center in 2011, and she was among the first teachers at Spirit Rock in California. For about forty years she taught widely in the United States and Europe and helped establish meditation centres in Canada, Germany, Alaska, Massachusetts, Colorado, Portland and California.

IMS says her teaching stressed awareness of body sensations and the three characteristics: anicca (impermanence), dukkha (unsatisfactoriness) and anattā (non-self).

She also took mindfulness beyond sitting. In her own description, this meant meditation while standing, walking, running, jumping, lying down and rolling on the grass, as well as in yoga, dance and laughter. Her students were asked to notice the slow stretch of an arm, the changing colours of the desert horizon, or the taste of food at meals. Her obituary calls her the first teacher to use movement and dance to train students in mindfulness.

Dhamma Dena

In 1977 she bought a cabin on five acres outside Joshua Tree, California. Students followed her there, and it grew into Dhamma Dena Desert Vipassana Center, where she led retreats three times a year until 2014. Mahasi Sayadaw once visited with his monks and gave the centre his blessing.

She supported efforts by Buddhist nuns to gain full ordination and often welcomed nuns to Dhamma Dena. In 2006 the Women's International Meditation Center Foundation recognised her for her role in bringing Vipassana to the West.

Jack Kornfield, founder of Spirit Rock, called her "one of our most amazing Buddhist elders, whose vision has helped plant the Dharma in the West".

Death in 2015

Ruth Denison died peacefully at home early on 26 February 2015, aged 92, with a small group of friends and students present. Sandy Boucher's biography, Dancing in the Dharma: The Life and Teachings of Ruth Denison, tells her story in more detail.