Kritee Kanko

Kritee (Kanko), Ph.D., is a Buddhist priest, climate scientist, Zen teacher, grief ceremony leader, and love-justice advocate, and writer. She is the founding guiding teacher of Boundless in Motion and a cofounder of Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center. For 12 years, before fully committing herself to these two nonprofit organizations, she served as a Director and Senior Scientist in the Climate Smart Agriculture program at Environmental Defense Fund. She writes at the crossroads of multiple disciplines, for students, seekers, and stubborn optimists. Her articles, interviews, and peer-reviewed manuscripts have appeared in many mainstream, academic, contemplative, and international outlets including the New York Times, BBC, Washington Post, Harvard Health, Yale Climate Connections, California Public Radio, Tricycle, Lion’s Roar, Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, Environmental Science and Technology, The Independent, The Hindu, and India Today.

Kritee believes that in this era of global polycrisis, our collective survival and sense of belonging depend on our ability to heal and re-Indigenize. For the past two years, she has been developing Re-Indigenizing as a multifaceted framework rooted in healing trauma through meditation, ecodharma practices and ceremonies that embrace animism, and using science and strategies rooted in nonviolence. She has been invited to bring her unique and loving approach to the climate crisis, racial justice, trauma healing, and spirituality to retreats and workshops by organizations including One Earth Sangha, Al Gore’s Climate Reality, 350.org, Stanford University, World Council of Churches, San Francisco Zen Center, Mind & Life Institute, and Lama Foundation.

From leading meditation intensives (called sesshin in the Zen tradition) to conducting workshops at the intersection of trauma healing and collective action, Kritee extends her welcoming embrace to people of all backgrounds. Her experience is that spiritual healing and releasing our personal and ecological grief in the presence of a loving community is necessary in helping us to unlock our gifts and serve our communities in a more radical way. Her inclusive and warm approach is reflected in her work with young adults, black, indigenous and other people of color, womxn, faith leaders, and those navigating the delicate interplay of different aspects of our ongoing polycrisis.