Leslie Booker is a heart-centered, spirit-driven lover of liberation and Buddhist meditation teacher committed to creating a culture of belonging through her teaching and writing. She completed Spirit Rock’s 4-year retreat Teacher Training Program in 2020, and shared the practices of yoga and mindfulness with New York City’s most vulnerable populations for more than a decade. She has coauthored and contributed to several publications, including the trauma-informed anthology Practicing Liberation and its accompanying workbook, for folks working toward social justice.
Leslie is a cofounder of the Yoga Service Council at Omega Institute and the Meditation Working Group of Occupy Wall Street. In 2020 she was invited to be a Sojourner Truth Leadership Fellow through Auburn Seminary and was voted by her peers as one of the 12 Powerful Women in the mindfulness movement. She’s especially passionate about supporting the sustainability of folks on the front lines, including activists, organizers, educators, and young adults; training future teachers through the Jaffe Peace Corps Fellows Program, and teaching residents at Teachers College at Columbia University. Leslie serves as the Guiding Teacher of New York Insight Meditation Center.