About
Linda Modaro founded and leads Sati Sangha, an online meditation community offering daily virtual sittings and retreats. She teaches Recollective Awareness Meditation, having completed intensive training in that method around 2008. Modaro co-authored Reflective Meditation: cultivating kindness and curiosity in the Buddha's company (2023) with Nelly Kaufer of Pine Street Sangha. She previously practiced Zen at the Zen Center of Los Angeles and the Zen Center of San Diego. Before teaching meditation, Modaro maintained an acupuncture practice in Santa Monica for over 20 years and is trained in Qi Gong.
Teaching focus
Linda Modaro's teaching focus, drawn from the source profile, sits in the Zen and Insight traditions. Several threads come up: chronic illness and pain as practice ground;. On talks, the style is closer to thinking-along than presenting. Linda Modaro 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 online. The bigger move Linda Modaro 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. Linda Modaro'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. Linda Modaro'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. Linda Modaro'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
Linda Modaro teaches in the Zen and Insight traditions. The teaching home is Sati Sangha. From the teacher's own profile: Linda Modaro is the founder and lead teacher at Sati Sangha, a vibrant online meditation community that offers daily virtual meditation sittings and online retreats throughout the year. Linda and Sati Sangha collaborate with Nelly Kaufer of Pine Street Sangha to creatively evolve the practice and the ways it is offered. Their 2023 creation is their co-authored book - Reflective Meditation: cultivating kindness and curiosity in the Buddha’s company. During the height of the pandemic in 2020 their sanghas meet daily online to practice Reflective Meditation - Piti Sangha, their shared community, was born and continues to meet daily. As a leader, Linda is accountable to the Sati Sangha Council members, her mentees, and her students as well as to a peer group of teachers. Her self-care includes walking in nature, singing, line dancing, reading, and individual therapy. Her history: Linda began teaching Buddhist meditation in 2008 after she completed her intensive training for meditation and dharma teaching in Recollective Awareness Meditation. Previous to that, she had a thriving acupuncture practice in Santa Monica, California, for more than 20 years. A master of Qi Gong, Linda also created a best-selling, four-part instructive Qi Gong video series called Discovering Chi: Energy Exercises (offered freely on the Sati Sangha website). Like so many others of my generation, I first became interested in Buddhism by reading books by Alan Watts, the Beat Poets, and others. Then in 1975 I sat my first retreat and began actually practicing meditation, first in Rochester, New York, and then at the Zen Center of Los Angeles with Maezumi Roshi. Later, in 1983, my wife and I moved to San Diego to join Joko Beck when she opened the Zen Center of San Diego. I studied there for many years while maintaining a career in education and helping to raise a small family. Around 2012, after my retirement, I was looking for a fresh approach and joined the Skillful Meditation Project led by Jason Siff. After sitting several retreats, I joined a teacher training cohort, and now work with Linda Modaro to develop my skills in leading meditation groups in Reflective Meditation. I think what really attracts me about this approach is the spirit of exploration and the quality of kindness to myself and others that seems to arise from the practice. I currently work with students in San Diego under Linda’s guidance. My other interests include a very strong engagement in the climate change movement as well as continuing to hike in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California and the canyons of Utah and Arizona as I have for years. Wendy Liepman began practicing Recollective Awareness Meditation with Jason Siff in 1999. She has worked with Reflective Meditation teachers Linda Modaro, and Nelly Kaufer for over 4 years as well as teacher Mary Webster. She has attended retreats at Kairos House in Spokane Washington and Indralaya in the San Juan Islands and most recently at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico. She facilitates monthly Reflective Meditation, which she often calls Reflective Insight Meditation, meetings in San Luis Obispo on the third Saturday of the month. She is also a singer-songwriter and plays music with her husband Bob as well as with the band Shadowlands. I live in Ann Arbor, MI, home of the Wolverines and the University of Michigan. Thirty years ago, a chronic illness prevented me from working for the first time in my life. I discovered my experience as an adva In the Insight stream Linda Modaro 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.
Lineage
Linda Modaro teaches as a lay teacher in the Zen and Insight traditions. The institutional home, per the source listing, is Sati Sangha, 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 Linda Modaro, the basic shape is short instruction, longer sittings, and some Q&A. Online sittings and talks, mostly in real time with optional recordings, are part of the offering. The container is shaped by Sati Sangha, 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.
