About
Cortland Dahl is a meditation teacher, scientist, and translator trained in Tibetan Buddhism. He holds a Ph.D. in Mind, Brain and Contemplative Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a master's degree in Buddhist Studies from Naropa University. Dahl has practiced meditation for nearly three decades, including eight years in Tibetan refugee settlements in Kathmandu, Nepal. He serves as Instructor for the Tergar community, Executive Director of Tergar International, and Chief Contemplative Officer at UW-Madison's Center for Healthy Minds. His work includes research on meditation's effects on the body and brain, and he has published twelve books of translations of classical Buddhist texts.
Teaching focus
Dahl's core teaching draws on shamatha, analytical meditation, deity practice. The frame is the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition with its layered approach to sutra and tantra, but the language stays plain. Dahl doesn't lecture from height. The talks tend to think alongside whatever's actually present in the room. Recurring themes include bodhicitta, emptiness, and tonglen. None of those get presented as abstract ideas. They're worked into the body, into ethics, into how a practitioner shows up in family life or at work, so that the dharma stops feeling like a separate compartment. Dahl works comfortably with longer-term practitioners. Talks assume some familiarity with sitting, and the questions tend to circle around how to keep practice alive once the early enthusiasm has thinned out. Format-wise, Dahl teaches in in-person, retreat, and the tone moves easily between guided sittings, dharma talks, and Q&A. Questions tend to get answered the way they were asked, without being reframed into something cleaner. That alone tells you a lot about how the room feels.
Background
Cortland Dahl is a meditation teacher, scientist, and translator trained in Tibetan Buddhism. He holds a Ph.D. in Mind, Brain and Contemplative Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a master's degree in Buddhist Studies from Naropa University. Dahl has practiced meditation for nearly three decades, including eight years in Tibetan refugee settlements in Kathmandu, Nepal. He serves as Instructor for the Tergar community, Executive Director of Tergar International, and Chief Contemplative Officer at UW-Madison's Center for Healthy Minds. His work includes research on meditation's effects on the body and brain, and he has published twelve books of translations of classical Buddhist texts. Cortland is a scientist, translator, and meditation teacher who offers workshops and leads retreats around the world. He has practiced meditation for nearly three decades and has spent time on retreat in monasteries and retreat centers throughout Japan, Burma, and India, including eight years spent living in Tibetan refugee settlements in Kathmandu, Nepal. He has a Ph.D. in Mind, Brain and Contemplative Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he was mentored by renowned neuroscientist Dr. Richard Davidson. He also holds a master’s Degree in Buddhist Studies from Naropa University. In addition to his work as an Instructor for the Tergar community and Executive Director of Tergar International, Cortland serves as Research Scientist and Chief Contemplative Officer at UW-Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds and the center’s affiliated non-profit, Healthy Minds Innovations. Cortland is actively involved in scientific research and has published articles on the impact of meditation practices on the body, mind, and brain. He has also published twelve books of translations of classical texts on Buddhist philosophy and meditation. He currently lives with his wife and son in Madison, Wisconsin. Dahl's teaching home is Tergar, where the practice community shapes the rhythm of retreats, sittings, and dharma talks. That work sits within the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition with its layered approach to sutra and tantra, and the recurring concerns of Dahl's teaching, ethical foundation, steady attention, and the slow softening of habitual reactivity, echo the older texts without sounding distant from a 21st-century practitioner's life. What stands out across Dahl's talks isn't a single technique but a steadying tone. Practice is treated as something built slowly, in ordinary life, with care. There's room for the difficulties practitioners actually bring into the room, grief, restlessness, the body's complaints, family obligations, and the encouragement is consistent without being pushy.
Lineage
Dahl teaches within the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition with its layered approach to sutra and tantra. Current affiliations include Tergar. The lineage shows up less in titles than in the way Dahl talks about practice, with steady reference to the older Buddhist vocabulary while keeping the door open for people who've never read a sutra. Whether that framing lands as monastic or lay depends on the specific talk, but the consistent thread is care for the form without letting the form become the point.
What to expect
Sitting with Dahl, you can expect grounded instruction in shamatha, with space to ask questions and bring whatever's actually showing up in your practice. On retreat the structure follows a classical rhythm of sittings, walking practice, and dharma talks, with silence held between sessions. The teaching voice is steady. Dahl won't push you past your edge, and there's a clear preference for slow, sustainable practice over breakthrough chasing. Bring a notebook if you like, or don't. Either way, you'll be met where you are.
