About
Emily Carpenter has practiced insight meditation and Hatha yoga since 1998. She studied multiple yoga traditions including Anusara, Viniyoga, and Kundalini, and completed two 200-hour Hatha yoga teacher trainings. She was on staff at the Insight Meditation Society from 2009-2012 and graduated from Spirit Rock's Community Dharma Leaders program in 2017. She has completed over a year of silent retreat, primarily at IMS. Based in Portland, Oregon, Carpenter works as an IFS-informed life coach and owns a web design business.
Teaching focus
Emily Carpenter's teaching focus sits inside the Insight Meditation lineage that grew from Burmese vipassana through teachers like Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield, with insight meditation (vipassana) as the working ground. The Insight Meditation lineage carries forward the Burmese vipassana teaching as it took root in the West through teachers like Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield. That means mindfulness held at the center, with metta and the broader brahmaviharas as steady companions, and a household-friendly framing that doesn't require ordination or extreme retreat conditions. 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 Emily Carpenter'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
Emily Carpenter has practiced insight meditation and Hatha yoga since 1998. She studied multiple yoga traditions including Anusara, Viniyoga, and Kundalini, and completed two 200-hour Hatha yoga teacher trainings. She was on staff at the Insight Meditation Society from 2009-2012 and graduated from Spirit Rock's Community Dharma Leaders program in 2017. She has completed over a year of silent retreat, primarily at IMS. Based in Portland, Oregon, Carpenter works as an IFS-informed life coach and owns a web design business. She deeply appreciates retreat practice and has completed over a year of silent retreat, mostly at IMS. Emily calls Portland Oregon home where she owns a web design business and also works as an IFS-informed life coach. In her free time, you can often find her enjoying the beautiful Pacific Northwest outdoors. Emily Carpenter's teaching is anchored at Spirit Rock. The teaching draws from the Insight Meditation lineage that grew from Burmese vipassana through teachers like Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield, with insight meditation (vipassana) as the working ground. Areas of particular focus include silent retreat. The voice in Emily Carpenter's teaching is recognizably in the Insight Meditation lineage, warm without being soft, and willing to sit with the difficult places practice opens. Mindfulness, loving-kindness, and the gradual accumulation of insight are the working vocabulary. Practitioners drawn to Emily Carpenter'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 Emily Carpenter'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 Emily Carpenter'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 Emily Carpenter'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 Emily Carpenter'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 Emily Carpenter'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
Emily Carpenter teaches within the Insight Meditation lineage that grew from Burmese vipassana through teachers like Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield. She has studied Anusara, Viniyoga, Kundalini and other forms of yoga and has completed two 200-hour Hatha yoga teacher training programs. She was on staff at the Insight Meditation Society from 2009-2012 and graduated from Spirit Rock's Community Dharma Leaders program in 2017. She deeply appreciates retreat practice and has completed over a year of silent retreat, mostly at IMS. Current affiliation runs through Spirit Rock. Emily Carpenter teaches as a lay practitioner rather than from a monastic role.
What to expect
On retreat with Emily Carpenter 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.
