Joan Tollifson
Joan Tollifson has a background in Buddhism, Advaita, and other forms of nondual spirituality, but she identifies with no particular tradition. Joan spent time with many different teachers. She considers Toni Packer her main teacher. Toni was a former Zen teacher who left that tradition behind to work in a simpler and more open way, and Joan spent five years on staff at Springwater Center, the retreat center that Toni founded.
Joan’s background also includes somatic work, addiction recovery, political activism, martial arts, and visual arts. She has held public and private meetings as well as occasional workshops and retreats since 1996. Joan is the author of five books: Bare-Bones Meditation: Waking Up from the Story of My Life (1996); Awake in the Heartland (2003); Painting the Sidewalk with Water: Talks and Dialogs about Nonduality (2010); Nothing to Grasp (2012); and Death: The End of Self-Improvement (2019).