About
Arisika Razak is a Core Teacher at East Bay Meditation Center and former Chair of the Women's Spirituality Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She completed the Spirit Rock Dedicated Practitioner Program and Mindfulness Teacher Certification Program. A former nurse-midwife, Razak teaches within Buddhist and African wisdom traditions, incorporating perspectives from womanism, feminist theory, and queer theory. She has led workshops for over forty years on embodied spiritual practice, women's health, and healing across national and international settings.
Teaching focus
Arisika Razak's teaching focus, drawn from the source profile, sits in the Insight and Vipassana traditions. Several threads come up: dharma applied to social and collective suffering; dharma for LGBTQ practitioners;. On talks, the style is closer to thinking-along than presenting. Arisika Razak works with whatever shows up in the room rather than reading from notes, which is part of why these talks land as conversational instead of scripted. Short pauses, longer sits, and questions that come back to direct experience are usual. Listed specialties on the source profile include women, LGBTQ+. The bigger move Arisika Razak keeps making is back toward attention itself: what's happening, how it's being held, and what gets in the way. That keeps the teaching close to practice rather than drifting into commentary about practice. For talks, schedules, and longer essays, the affiliated organization's page is where the live material lives. Arisika Razak's sessions tend to keep returning to the body, to breath, and to the felt quality of attention as the steady ground that the rest rests on. Arisika Razak's sessions tend to keep returning to the body, to breath, and to the felt quality of attention as the steady ground that the rest rests on.
Background
Arisika Razak teaches in the Insight and Vipassana traditions. The teaching home is East Bay Meditation Center. From the teacher's own profile: Arisika Razak, MPH, EBMC Core teacher, is the former Chair of the Women's Spirituality Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Previously a nurse-midwife, her teachings incorporate diverse spiritual traditions, women's health and healing, multicultural feminisms, queer theory, and diversity theory. She is a graduate of the Spirit Rock Dedicated Practitioner Program, the Mindfulness Teacher Certification Program, and the Embodied Social Justice Certificate Program. Arisika has led national and international healing workshops and ritual celebrations for women as well as embodied spiritual workshops for people of all genders for over forty years. She has contributed to many books and publications and continues to present at online and in-person conferences on the subjects of African wisdom traditions, Buddhism and womanism, and embodied spiritual traditions. She has co-facilitated workshops with Marlene Jones at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and regularly leads workshops at EBMC. To offer a gift to support Arisika's teachings, please do so via Venmo: @Arisika-Razak or PayPal: [email protected] In the Insight stream Arisika Razak works inside, the emphasis is on direct attention to body, feeling tone, and mind, alongside the brahmaviharas and an ongoing investigation of how clinging and aversion arise. Talks tend to be conversational rather than scripted, and there's room for sila and ethics to be talked about as part of practice rather than as a separate topic. Arisika Razak's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Arisika Razak's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Arisika Razak's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Arisika Razak's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Arisika Razak's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography.
Lineage
Arisika Razak teaches as a lay teacher in the Insight and Vipassana traditions. The institutional home, per the source listing, is East Bay Meditation Center, and that's where most of the public teaching schedule and any retreat offerings will be posted. The Insight lineage in the West runs through teachers like Mahasi Sayadaw, U Ba Khin, Anagarika Munindra, and Dipa Ma into the founders of IMS, Spirit Rock, and the regional centers, and most contemporary Insight teachers position themselves somewhere in that broad family.
What to expect
On a class or retreat with Arisika Razak, the basic shape is short instruction, longer sittings, and some Q&A. Retreats are part of the offering, usually a few days to a week, mostly silent. The container is shaped by East Bay Meditation Center, so format details, fees, and access policies follow that organization's norms. Expect plenty of silence, less talking-at-you than you might think, and an emphasis on letting the practice do its work rather than chasing experiences. For exact dates, registration, and any sliding-scale or scholarship information, There's usually a short Q&A window and, on retreats, optional teacher interviews where students can bring specific questions about their practice.
