Buddhist Counseling ♦ Meditation Therapy ♦ Santa Monica ♦ Mindfulness Coaching ♦ Dharma Study

Friend . Teacher . That Old Guy

Akasa Levi ~ The Laughing Buddha Sangha: ♦ AKASA-MAITREYA LEVI, DhMA (D.Min) ~ SUNY Harpur College / Binghamton University, New York – an American that went to live a full decade in Asia in the 1970s - to be directly with the last living spiritual teachers of the pre-global era. He was a Vipassana Buddhist forest monk for six years - trained and ordained into the Theravada monastic lineage by the revered Bhante Ananda Maitreya & Kassapa Mahathera of Sri Lanka. Arriving in India in 1972 as a filmmaker & student of the Gurdjieff 'Work', Akasa became a Vajrayana initiate of Lama Thubten Yeshe & Zopa Rinpoche in Nepal – a Vipassana student of Sri Munindra & S.N. Goenka, and sitting Zazen with Subhuti Shibuya Sensei: all in Bodhgaya, India - and Non-Duality Advaita with Nisargadatta Maharaj in Bombay. Akasa studied Western analytic therapy at UCLA on returning to America. He teaches Mindfulness Insight-Meditation at The Laughing Buddha Sangha - leads ZEN•MEN inner-growth groups - and offers buddhist-based counseling and therapy. Akasa is now a 'Bodhi-Acharya' lineage-holder of the Theravada teaching transmission. He is known for his spontaneity, ready warmth, and wry unpredictable humor.