About
Ashley Sharp is a meditation teacher and yoga instructor based in Northern California. She has taught Buddhist dharma and meditation for over 20 years, with ongoing Vipassana practice. Sharp completed the two-year Dedicated Practitioner Program and Community Dharma Leader training at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. She is trained in yoga, yoga therapy, and yoga nidra. Sharp founded and operates Refuge at Pudding Creek, a retreat center focused on mindfulness, nature, and yoga. She is the author of Mindfulness for Beginners: 4 Weeks to Everyday Peace, Gratitude, and Focus.
Teaching focus
Ashley Sharp'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. Newer meditators get clean ground-up instruction, with no assumption that they've already done a residential retreat or read three contemporary dharma books. 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 Ashley Sharp'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. 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
Ashley Sharp is a meditation teacher and yoga instructor based in Northern California. She has taught Buddhist dharma and meditation for over 20 years, with ongoing Vipassana practice. Sharp completed the two-year Dedicated Practitioner Program and Community Dharma Leader training at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. She is trained in yoga, yoga therapy, and yoga nidra. Sharp founded and operates Refuge at Pudding Creek, a retreat center focused on mindfulness, nature, and yoga. She is the author of Mindfulness for Beginners: 4 Weeks to Everyday Peace, Gratitude, and Focus. Ashley's ongoing practice of Vipassana meditation leads naturally to her unique weaving of mindfulness and dharma (wisdom) themes into an embodied understanding of the teachings. She graduated from the "Dedicated Practitioner Program," and the "Community Dharma Leader" trainings (both are 2 year invitational trainings through Spirit Rock Meditation Center). She lives in Northern California among the redwood trees where she founded and runs a small retreat center called Refuge at Pudding Creek. The center focuses on awakening through mindfulness, nature, art and yoga. Sharp is the author of "Mindfulness for Beginners: 4 Weeks to Everyday Peace, Gratitude, and Focus". When we do meditation, that’s a type of yoga, not in the sense of a body shape, but as a method that leads to results. Ashley Sharp'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 beginners, retreat. In Ashley Sharp'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 Ashley Sharp'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 Ashley Sharp'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 Ashley Sharp'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 Ashley Sharp'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
Ashley Sharp teaches within the Burmese vipassana revival as transmitted to the West. She has been teaching Buddha-dharma and meditation for over 20 years while continuing to study and practice at home and across the world. She is also trained in yoga, yoga therapy, and yoga nidra (a reclining meditation practice). Ashley's ongoing practice of Vipassana meditation leads naturally to her unique weaving of mindfulness and dharma (wisdom) themes into an embodied understanding of the teachings. She graduated from the "Dedicated Practitioner Program," and the "Community Dharma Leader" trainings (both are 2 year invitational trainings through Spirit Rock Meditation Center). Current affiliation runs through Spirit Rock. Ashley Sharp teaches as a lay practitioner rather than from a monastic role.
What to expect
On retreat with Ashley Sharp 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. 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.
