About
David Foecke is a co-founder of the East Bay Meditation Center. He began formal meditation practice in 1982 and has completed over fifty intensive silent retreats with more than one hundred teachers across five different meditation traditions. Before his involvement with the meditation center, he worked as a social entrepreneur and activist in Seattle, including founding Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility and co-founding Washington Peace Action and Cafe Flora.
Teaching focus
David Foecke's teaching focus, drawn from the source profile, sits in the Vipassana tradition. Several threads come up: dharma applied to social and collective suffering; dharma for parents and householders;. On talks, the style is closer to thinking-along than presenting. David Foecke 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. The bigger move David Foecke 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. David Foecke'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. David Foecke'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. David Foecke'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
David Foecke teaches in the Vipassana tradition. The teaching home is East Bay Meditation Center. From the teacher's own profile: David Foecke is a social entrepreneur, father, husband, and activist. He is a co-founder of the East Bay Meditation Center. In a former life, he was the founding Executive Director of Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, co-founder of Washington Peace Action, and of Cafe Flora in Seattle. He began his meditation practice in 1982 and has spent more than two years of his life in fifty-plus intensive silent retreats, with over one hundred teachers from five different traditions. His current practice is centered around co-parenting an energetic youngster. In the Insight stream David Foecke 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. David Foecke'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. David Foecke'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. David Foecke'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. David Foecke'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. David Foecke'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. David Foecke'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. David Foecke'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
David Foecke teaches as a lay teacher in the Vipassana tradition. 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 David Foecke, the basic shape is short instruction, longer sittings, and some Q&A. 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.
