About
Ananda Leeke is a meditation and yoga teacher based in Washington, D.C., affiliated with the Insight Meditation Community of Washington. She holds certifications as a yoga teacher, mindfulness teacher, reiki master practitioner, and sound healer. Leeke has worked as an artist-in-residence at Howard University Hospital and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. She founded Ananda Leeke Consulting and the Thriving Mindfully Academy, an online education platform. She has published three books: Love's Troubadours, a yoga-inspired novel; That Which Awakens Me, a mindful creativity memoir; and Digital Sisterhood, a mindful technology memoir.
Teaching focus
Ananda Leeke's teaching focus sits inside the Insight Meditation lineage that grew from Burmese vipassana through teachers like Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield, with insight meditation (vipassana) as the working ground. The Insight Meditation lineage carries forward the Burmese vipassana teaching as it took root in the West through teachers like Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield. That means mindfulness held at the center, with metta and the broader brahmaviharas as steady companions, and a household-friendly framing that doesn't require ordination or extreme retreat conditions. Working with stress isn't treated as the entry-level version of the dharma. It's where most practitioners actually start, and the teaching takes that starting point seriously. Online teaching is treated as its own form, with attention to what works in that medium rather than as a downscaled version of in-person work. Workplace-oriented teaching keeps the depth without losing the audience, which is harder to do well than it usually looks. Across the body of work, the consistent thread in Ananda Leeke's teaching is the refusal to let practice become abstract. The instruction asks for direct contact with what's actually arising, and the framing supports practitioners in giving it that. Recurring questions in the teaching include how to keep practice honest across years, how to hold difficulty without bypassing it, and how the dharma actually shows up in ordinary life rather than only on the cushion.
Background
Ananda Leeke is a meditation and yoga teacher based in Washington, D.C., affiliated with the Insight Meditation Community of Washington. She holds certifications as a yoga teacher, mindfulness teacher, reiki master practitioner, and sound healer. Leeke has worked as an artist-in-residence at Howard University Hospital and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. She founded Ananda Leeke Consulting and the Thriving Mindfully Academy, an online education platform. She has published three books: Love's Troubadours, a yoga-inspired novel; That Which Awakens Me, a mindful creativity memoir; and Digital Sisterhood, a mindful technology memoir. As a result, she became a certified yoga and mindfulness teacher, a digital wellness educator, a reiki master practitioner, a sound healer, and an artist-in-residence for the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts at Howard University Hospital and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Today, she helps high achievers and mission-driven companies, organizations, and communities outsmart stress and burnout, embrace digital wellness, tap into creativity, work with change, become resilient, and thrive mindfully. As the Chief Mindfulness Officer of Ananda Leeke Consulting, she leads a wellness company that specializes in personal and professional development, and the Thriving Mindfully Academy, an online education platform. She also hosts and produces the Thriving Mindfully Podcast. Currently, she serves on the Board of Directors and as a coach for the Nonprofit Technology Network’s (NTEN) Alchemy Tech Cohort Program in the areas of mindful self-care, digital wellness, mindful communication, and mindful creativity. In 2019, Ananda was selected by lululemon to serve as a lululemon luminary, received Acquisition International’s Influential Businesswoman in Professional Development, USA Award, and was named a Well-Being Warrior by the Well-Being and Equity Bridging Network. Ananda Leeke's teaching is anchored at Insight Meditation Community of Washington. The teaching draws from the Insight Meditation lineage that grew from Burmese vipassana through teachers like Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield, with insight meditation (vipassana) as the working ground. Areas of particular focus include stress, corporate, online. The voice in Ananda Leeke's teaching is recognizably in the Insight Meditation lineage, warm without being soft, and willing to sit with the difficult places practice opens. Mindfulness, loving-kindness, and the gradual accumulation of insight are the working vocabulary. Practitioners drawn to Ananda Leeke's teaching tend to be people who've already noticed that practice is a long arc, not a quick fix, and who want a teacher who treats it that way. Practitioners drawn to Ananda Leeke's teaching tend to be people who've already noticed that practice is a long arc, not a quick fix, and who want a teacher who treats it that way.
Lineage
Ananda Leeke teaches within the Insight Meditation lineage that grew from Burmese vipassana through teachers like Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield. During Ananda’s healing path, she studied and practiced meditation, yoga, reiki, journaling, art-making, and creative writing. As a result, she became a certified yoga and mindfulness teacher, a digital wellness educator, a reiki master practitioner, a sound healer, and an artist-in-residence for the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts at Howard University Hospital and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Current affiliation runs through Insight Meditation Community of Washington. Ananda Leeke teaches as a lay practitioner rather than from a monastic role.
What to expect
In Ananda Leeke's online programs, expect guided sittings, structured teaching segments, and group discussion that takes the medium seriously rather than treating it as a fallback. Sittings are conventional, mindfulness of breath and body, with metta and inquiry into difficult mind-states woven through. There's space for questions, and the answers don't get rushed. The atmosphere is grounded rather than performative, and practitioners tend to leave with practical ground to keep working from on their own. The atmosphere is grounded rather than performative, and practitioners tend to leave with practical ground to keep working from on their own. The atmosphere is grounded rather than performative, and practitioners tend to leave with practical ground to keep working from on their own.
