About
Anthony T Maes has practiced Buddhist meditation since 2003, including extended retreats and time at a forest monastery in Thailand. He teaches mindfulness and meditation at East Bay Meditation Center, Inward Bound Mindfulness Education, IMS, Freedom-Together, and Dharma Homies. His work focuses on mindfulness teacher training, mindful movement, and teen meditation retreats. Maes completed the Commit2Dharma program at EBMC in 2011, facilitator training in 2017, and a three-year Organic Intelligence practitioner training in post-traumatic nervous system resilience in 2018. He is currently enrolled in the four-year Teacher Training Program at Spirit Rock/IMS.
Teaching focus
Anthony T Maes's teaching focus sits inside the Burmese vipassana revival as transmitted to the West, with insight meditation (vipassana) as the working ground. Vipassana practice as taught here works with direct observation of body, feeling-tone, mind-state, and dhammas, the four foundations of mindfulness as they appear in the Satipatthana Sutta. The instruction keeps coming back to what's actually arising rather than what should be. Trauma-informed teaching shows up as pacing, as explicit consent for difficult material, and as a willingness to abandon the schedule when a practitioner needs that more than the next instruction. Teen-oriented teaching keeps the language plain, the demands realistic, and the framing free of adult hand-wringing about what young people should be doing with their attention. The teaching is shaped by the silent-retreat container, with the long arcs and the sustained quiet that container makes possible. Across the body of work, the consistent thread in Anthony T Maes'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
Anthony T Maes has practiced Buddhist meditation since 2003, including extended retreats and time at a forest monastery in Thailand. He teaches mindfulness and meditation at East Bay Meditation Center, Inward Bound Mindfulness Education, IMS, Freedom-Together, and Dharma Homies. His work focuses on mindfulness teacher training, mindful movement, and teen meditation retreats. Maes completed the Commit2Dharma program at EBMC in 2011, facilitator training in 2017, and a three-year Organic Intelligence practitioner training in post-traumatic nervous system resilience in 2018. He is currently enrolled in the four-year Teacher Training Program at Spirit Rock/IMS. "T" graduated from UC Berkeley in 2004, completed the yearlong Commit2Dharma program at EBMC in 2011, and the 2017 Facilitator training with his mentor JoAnna Hardy and Vinny Ferraro. In 2018, he completed the 3-year Organic Intelligence practitioner training in post-traumatic nervous system resilience. He is currently in the 4-year Teacher Training Program at Spirit Rock/IMS. Anthony T Maes's teaching is anchored at Spirit Rock. The teaching draws from the Burmese vipassana revival as transmitted to the West, with insight meditation (vipassana) as the working ground. Areas of particular focus include teens, trauma, retreat. In Anthony T Maes's talks the emphasis lands on direct observation. What the breath actually does, what mood actually feels like in the body, what arises and passes when nothing is being added. The practice is asked to deliver its own evidence. Practitioners drawn to Anthony T Maes'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 Anthony T Maes'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 Anthony T Maes'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 Anthony T Maes'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 Anthony T Maes'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 Anthony T Maes'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
Anthony T Maes teaches within the Burmese vipassana revival as transmitted to the West. He teaches at East Bay Meditation Center, Inward Bound Mindfulness Education, IMS, Freedom-Together, and Dharma Homies where he leads Mindfulness Teacher Training programs, Mindful Movement, and teen meditation retreats. "T" graduated from UC Berkeley in 2004, completed the yearlong Commit2Dharma program at EBMC in 2011, and the 2017 Facilitator training with his mentor JoAnna Hardy and Vinny Ferraro. In 2018, he completed the 3-year Organic Intelligence practitioner training in post-traumatic nervous system resilience. Current affiliation runs through Spirit Rock. Anthony T Maes teaches as a lay practitioner rather than from a monastic role.
What to expect
On retreat with Anthony T Maes you'll get long sits, walking practice, and dharma talks that build on each other across days. The container is silent or near-silent, which gives the teaching room to land in a way that single classes can't quite reach. 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. Pacing is trauma-informed, which means slow when slow is needed and explicit invitations to titrate intensity rather than push through. The atmosphere is grounded rather than performative, and practitioners tend to leave with practical ground to keep working from on their own.
