Local Order Members

Viveka

Listen to talks by Viveka (MP3 format) on Free Buddhist Audio.

As Chairwoman of the San Francisco Buddhist Center, Viveka has overall responsibility for the Center, particularly fostering a sense of community and maintaining the spiritual integrity of the situation. She also teaches meditation and Buddhism classes and leads retreats for the San Francisco Buddhist Center and internationallly.

In '86 Viveka came across the Buddhist teachings in a university Chinese philosphy course. In '97, at the age of 29, she was ordained into the Western Buddhist Order. She has a deep love for meditation and in recent years has gone to the Chinese and Tibetan mountains for longer solitary meditation retreats.

A Chinese American, Viveka works on social justice issues in the Bay Area's communities of color. She is engaged in outreach efforts making meditation available to activists and people of color and was a teacher at Spirit Rock's 2004 Asian Pacific Islander Dharma Retreat and Conference and the 2005 Vallecitos retreat for activists of color. Her writing appears in Dharma Culture and Color: New Voices in Western Buddhism, and The Buddha's Apprentices: More Voices of Young Buddhists.