About
James Morrison was ordained as a Buddhist monk in the Thai Forest Tradition and spent 15 years living with meditation masters in Thailand. For the past 12 years he has also practiced at Redwood Hermitage, his property in the Santa Cruz mountains. He left monastic life but continues to teach within the Theravada lineage he inherited from his teachers. He is based at Redwood Hermitage and facilitates individual retreats there.
Teaching focus
Morrison's core teaching draws on mindfulness of breathing, noting practice, body sweeping. The frame is early Buddhist teachings rooted in the Pali canon, but the language stays plain. Morrison doesn't lecture from height. The talks tend to think alongside whatever's actually present in the room. Recurring themes include sila, samadhi, and the four foundations of mindfulness. 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. Morrison 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, Morrison teaches in in-person, retreat, online, 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
James Morrison was ordained as a Buddhist monk in the Thai Forest Tradition and spent 15 years living with meditation masters in Thailand. For the past 12 years he has also practiced at Redwood Hermitage, his property in the Santa Cruz mountains. He left monastic life but continues to teach within the Theravada lineage he inherited from his teachers. He is based at Redwood Hermitage and facilitates individual retreats there. James Morrison was ordained as a Buddhist monk in the Thai Forest Tradition and lived with meditation masters in Thailand for 15 years. For the last 12 years he has also practiced at his property in the Santa Cruz mountains, the Redwood Hermitage. James has now retired from his life as a monk but is continuing to teach the Dhamma he has inherited from his teachers. Currently he is staying at his peaceful hermitage, surrounded by Redwood trees. Others are welcome to join him, spending time on individual retreat, experiencing the tranquility, beauty, and simplicity of nature. Morrison teaches across several communities, including Insight Meditation Center, Insight Retreat Center. That work sits within early Buddhist teachings rooted in the Pali canon, and the recurring concerns of Morrison'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 Morrison'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
Morrison teaches within early Buddhist teachings rooted in the Pali canon. Current affiliations include Insight Meditation Center, Insight Retreat Center. The lineage shows up less in titles than in the way Morrison 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 Morrison, you can expect grounded instruction in mindfulness of breathing, 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. Online sessions tend to keep the same shape, shorter sits, a talk, and time for Q&A, in a format that's accessible from home. The teaching voice is steady. Morrison 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.
