About
Celeste Young began formal meditation practice in 2002. She completed the first teacher development cohort at InsightLA under Trudy Goodman in 2011 and was given teacher transmission in the Theravada Buddhist lineage by Goodman and Jack Kornfield in 2017. She teaches as a core faculty member at InsightLA in mindfulness and Dharma programs and serves on the teacher council. She also teaches mindfulness in corporate and nonprofit settings, offers private instruction, and leads workshops, daylongs, and residential retreats locally and internationally. Her background includes yoga practice, training in somatic experiencing, and completion of Spirit Rock's Advanced Practitioner Program. She practices annual silent meditation retreat, with a focus on extended retreats of one to three months.
Teaching focus
Celeste Young's teaching focus, drawn from the source profile, sits in the Theravada and Insight traditions. Several threads come up: steady attention to body and breath; the relationship between ethics and meditation; and short, direct teachings rather than long talks. On talks, the style is closer to thinking-along than presenting. Celeste Young 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 retreat, corporate, advanced practice, trauma. The bigger move Celeste Young 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. Celeste Young'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. Celeste Young'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
Celeste Young teaches in the Theravada and Insight traditions. The teaching home is InsightLA. From the teacher's own profile: Celeste began formal meditation practice in 2002. She was invited to join the very first teacher development cohort at InsightLA under the guidance of founder Trudy Goodman in 2011 and has since taught thousands of students the essentials of mindfulness over the years. Celeste offers several classes a week as a core teacher at ILA, in both the mindfulness and Dharma programs, and sits on the InsightLA teacher’s council. In addition, she teaches mindfulness for companies and non-profit organizations, works with individuals privately, and leads workshops, daylongs, and residential retreats both locally and internationally. Her background includes many years as a yoga practitioner, Peter Levine’s somatic experiencing training, Spirit Rock’s Advanced Practitioner Program and over a decade of sitting silent meditation retreat each year, with a strong commitment to long retreats of 1-3 months. In 2017 she was given teacher transmission in the Theravada Buddhist lineage by Trudy Goodman and Jack Kornfield. She loves sharing the practice of mindfulness with others and strongly believes in the power of mindful awareness to heal and re-connect us to our own inherent sense of ease and well-being. In the Insight stream Celeste Young 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. Celeste Young'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. Celeste Young'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. Celeste Young'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. Celeste Young'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. Celeste Young'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
Celeste Young teaches as a lay teacher in the Theravada and Insight traditions. The institutional home, per the source listing, is InsightLA, 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 Celeste Young, 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 InsightLA, 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.
