About
Paloma Cain, MA, teaches in the Insight tradition. She has taught at InsightLA in Los Angeles since 2009, where she trained with Trudy Goodman in the early Teacher Development Group. Her teaching includes Foundations of Mindfulness, Mindful Parenting, and MBSR classes, as well as retreats and mentoring. From 2015 to recently, she was based in Nashville, where she co-developed a Professional Development in Mindfulness Facilitation program at Vanderbilt University's Osher Center for Integrative Health, training healthcare and mental health providers. She currently lives in Northern California, where she founded Northcoast Insight. She serves on the planning committee for the 2026 Generation X Buddhist Teachers Gathering and is a former mentor for the Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach Mindfulness Teacher Training Certification Program.
Teaching focus
Paloma Cain's teaching focus, drawn from the source profile, sits in the Vipassana and Insight traditions. Several threads come up: dharma for parents and householders;. On talks, the style is closer to thinking-along than presenting. Paloma Cain 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 beginners, retreat, MBSR. The bigger move Paloma Cain 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. Paloma Cain'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. Paloma Cain'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. Paloma Cain'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
Paloma Cain teaches in the Vipassana and Insight traditions. The teaching home is InsightLA. From the teacher's own profile: Paloma Cain, MA, has been teaching with InsightLA since 2009. She loves helping new practitioners develop a reliable, nourishing meditation practice and also mentoring seasoned practitioners to develop the wisdom to pass these practices on meaningfully to others. A pilgrimage to Northern India with her Buddhist mother in 1993 planted the seeds that led to studying Buddhism at UCSB and then spending several years in residence at a remote retreat center with practice at the center of her life. Following graduate school, Paloma was invited by Trudy Goodman to join the early Teacher Development Group at InsightLA, training closely with Trudy in an intimate cohort of teachers that formed the core of the organization. Paloma spent many years in Los Angeles co-leading a weekly group in Los Feliz and regularly teaching Foundations of Mindfulness, Mindful Parenting and MBSR classes, along with other programs and retreats, including InsightLA’s Facilitator Training Program. She offered meditation groups and trainings for staff at LA area VA Hospitals as part of the VA CALM project. In 2015, Paloma moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where she co-developed and taught the Professional Development in Mindfulness Facilitation program for the Osher Center for Integrative Health at Vanderbilt University, training mental health and medical providers to use meditation with their patients. While in Nashville, Paloma taught for Insight Nashville, One Dharma Nashville and Wild Heart Meditation Center. She also led retreats at St Mary’s Sewanee. Paloma currently lives among the coastal redwoods of far Northern California where she founded Northcoast Insight. She’s currently on the planning committee for the 2026 Generation X Buddhist Teachers Gathering and is a former mentor for Jack Kornfield and Tara Brachs’ Mindfulness Teacher Training Certification Program. She travels to teach in Los Angeles, Nashville, and elsewhere, and continues to offer mentoring for both personal practice and mindfulness teacher development. In response to the global events causing suffering in these times, Paloma has been steadily deepening her engagement in the field of spiritual care. She has done Clinical Pastoral Education at UCLA Medical Center, trained in Buddhist Chaplaincy with the Sati Center, and trained with Healing Circles Global to offer community-based healing spaces. She holds degrees in Art (BA) and Psychology (MA) and has studied yoga therapy through the Yoga Well Institute. Paloma received teacher authorization from Trudy Goodman and Jack Kornfield in 2017. Her approach is warm, thoughtful and accessible. In the Insight stream Paloma Cain 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
Paloma Cain teaches as a lay teacher in the Vipassana and Insight traditions. The institutional home, per the source listing, is InsightLA, 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 Paloma Cain, the basic shape is short instruction, longer sittings, and some Q&A. Retreats are part of the offering, usually a few days to a week, mostly silent. The container is shaped by InsightLA, 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.
