Walt Opie

Walt Opie first discovered insight meditation at Spirit Rock in 1993 and has attended residential retreats since 2005. He is a graduate of both Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leaders program (CDL4) and the four-year IMS Teacher Training Program (2017-2021). Walt has led sitting groups specifically for people in addiction recovery since 2011. He started assisting and teaching on residential insight meditation retreats in 2017.

Since 2014, Walt has served as a volunteer teacher with Boundless Freedom Project (formerly known as Buddhist Pathways Prison Project) inside prisons in California, and he served on their nonprofit board for five years (including two years as Board Chair). He is a graduate of the Sati Center Buddhist Chaplaincy program. Some of his most influential teachers include: Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Bhikkhu Anālayo, Luang Por Sumedho, Ajahn Pasanno, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein, Carol Wilson, Guy Armstrong and Gil Fronsdal.

Walt’s writing appears in the book collection Still, In the City: Creating Peace of Mind in the Midst of Urban Chaos edited by Angela Dews (Skyhorse Publishing, 2018). He received an MFA in Writing from California College of the Arts in 2004. He lives in Berkeley, CA with his wife and young daughter.