Your Host

Author, Educator, Environmentalist

Maya van der Meer

Maya is the founder of the online education platform Bodhi Kids and assists Buddhist communities in establishing or enhancing their children’s programming. Maya has run children's programs at meditation retreats internationally and was an instructor at the Middle Way School in Woodstock, New York, where she currently lives with her life partner and their children. Maya and her partner are co-founders of The CarbonDrawn Initiative, leading a global effort to combat climate change through regenerative agriculture.

Webinar Course

Who's Teaching & What You Will Learn


Lama Karma Drodhul

Advice from a Buddhist Monk Who Became a Family Man

Lama Karma was born into a nomadic Tibetan family. He is one of ten children. He was trained as a monk and excelled in all aspects of dharma study at Thrangu Monastery. Thrangu Rinpoche sent him to the U. S. to deepen his understanding of the dharma under the tutelage of Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche. Lama Karma has completed two traditional three-year meditation retreats. He has traveled to centers throughout North and South America to teach for the past 10 years. He was appointed as the president of KTD by H.H Karmapa in September of 2018 and is currently working and teaching at KTD. He is also a devoted husband and father.
Learn More About Lama Karma

What You Will Learn

Lama Karma shares his fascinating life story: how his upbringing in a large Tibetan nomadic family and his time as a monk inform his experience as a householder now.

  • Text length of individual points can be shorter or longer depending on your needs

  • Text length of individual points can be shorter or longer depending on your needs

  • Text length of individual points can be shorter or longer depending on your needs

Trish Melone LCSW-R

Advice from a Psychotherapist Whose Approach is Informed by the Study of Buddhism and the Arts

Trish Malone, MA, LCSW-R, is a psychotherapist whose approach is informed by her training in psychosynthesis, the study of Buddhism, and a lifelong love of the arts. For more than 10 years, she has worked intensively with crime victims, individuals with disabilities, and children in therapeutic foster care, as well as in private practice in upstate New York, helping them access their own creativity to serve as a mechanism for healing. Trish has led the Bodhi Kids parent program for over a decade.
Learn More About Trish

What You Will Learn

Trish and Maya reminisce about the Bodhi Kids parenting workshops and share conversation that ranges from how to cultivate energetic connections to why My Octopus Teacher is striking a chord in our collective psyche now.

  • The Unique Emotional Challenges and Opportunities Covid Brings

  • Cultivating Energetic Connections When We Can't Physically Touch

  • The Buddhist Roots of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)

  • Feelings First Aid Coping Skills

  • How to Sooth Yourself with Your 5 Senses

Bethany Saltman

Advice from an Attachment Science Expert on How To Live Fully Through Relationship

Bethany Saltman is an author, editor and researcher. Her work can be seen in magazines like the New Yorker, New York Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, Parents, and many others. her book Strange Situation: A Mother’s Journey Into the Science of Attachment, published in April, 2020 by Random House. It is inspired by the birth of her daughter in 2006, who she loved dearly, but feared she was failing. So, she spent ten years teaching herself the science of attachment, traveling to labs, trainings, and archives, trying to discover what kind of mother she really was, and if she was good enough. What she learned changed everything about how she thought of herself, her childhood, and the nature of love.
Learn More About Bethany

What You Will Learn

Bethany shares many valuable insights during this engaging conversation including: "The reason we react to our children in crappy ways is because we react to ourselves in crappy ways. When your kid drives you crazy it's because your reaction to what they're doing drives you crazy."

  • The Stark Difference Between Classic Attachment Science and Dr Sears' "Attachment Parenting Method"

  • How to Truly Delight in Your Children & Life

  • Pathways for Healing the Inner Child from a Buddhist Perspective

Dr. Christopher Willard (PsyD)

Advice on How to Bring Mindfulness into Our Family Lives for Greater Resilience

Dr. Christopher Willard (PsyD) is a psychologist and educational consultant based in Boston specializing in mindfulness. He has been practicing meditation for 20 years, and has led hundreds of workshops around the world, with invitations to more than two dozen countries. He currently serves on the board of directors at the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy, and is the president of the Mindfulness in Education Network. He has presented at TEDx conferences and his thoughts have appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, mindful.org, and elsewhere. He is the author of Child’s Mind (2010) Growing Up Mindful (2016) Raising Resilience (2017) and eight other books for parents, professionals and children, along with six sets of cards and therapeutic games, available in more than ten languages. He teaches at Harvard Medical School. On the personal side, he enjoys traveling, hiking, cooking, reading and writing, and being a father.
Learn More About Christopher

What You Will Learn

Chris and Maya discuss how to build simple mindfulness practices into our family lives and how we can support our teens’ mental health during the pandemic.

  • How bring mindfulness into children's lives starts with the adults

  • Roses and Thorns: A Mindful Reflection Practice for the Whole Family

  • Teen Challenges Durning the Pandemic: Isolation and Screen Addiction

  • Two Things Teens Need to Succeed in Life

Bonus material

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  • Bonus material

    Explain the value your additional content will bring to a student’s overall learning experience. Use this opportunity to sell potential students on the extra benefits your bonus material provides.

  • Bonus material

    Explain the value your additional content will bring to a student’s overall learning experience. Use this opportunity to sell potential students on the extra benefits your bonus material provides.