Board of Directors

Tim Geil began practicing Insight Meditation in 1996 and has taught meditation since 2006 under the guidance of Rodney Smith. In 2016, Tim completed the four-year Residential Retreat Teacher Training through Spirit Rock, Insight Meditation Society, and Insight Retreat Center. The core teachers of this intensive program were Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, Carol Wilson, Gil Fronsdal, Guy Armstrong, Andrea Fella, Trudy Goodman, and Phillip Moffitt.

Tim emphasizes three expressions of the Dharma: investigation, non-resistance, and compassion. Our daily lives prove a tailor-made spiritual path for each person when we are willing to investigate areas of constriction and resistance. This reveals our personal suffering created by the illusion of a separate self. A deep sense of non-resistance and compassion brings balance to investigation. Relaxing fully into this moment is the essence of non-resistance. Compassion brings sensitivity and kindness as we meet all aspects of ourselves. This allows the heart’s release into stillness.

A Co-Guiding Teacher of Seattle Insight, Tim offers talks, classes, interviews, and retreats. He also works closely with leadership and volunteers at Seattle Insight as a member of the board of directors. Tim has inhabited many roles: husband, father, wilderness ranger, martial artist, hospice volunteer, massage therapist. His relationship with his wife and daughter are a joyful and fundamental part of his dharma practice.

Cubba found the Seattle Insight community through friends and will be forever grateful. She took a beginning meditation class from Rodney Smith in 2016 and again from Tim Geil in 2019, each experience unique and rich. She’s followed Seattle Insight from St. Marks to SODO to Friends Meeting. The dhamma has been a steadying practice in her life, no matter the meeting place. She appreciates all the spaces Seattle Insight provides, volunteer opportunities little and big, to connect with and grow this community.

A native of Detroit, Cubba has lived on Seattle’s Eastside for the past 20 years where she and her husband raised their three children. A social worker by training, she is a currently a Parent Education Instructor at Bellevue College with a private practice coaching parents. For fun she is an amateur dog trainer and loves dogs, horses, hiking, grandchildren, and as many books as the library will allow her to check out.

After completing an introductory meditation class held at a local yoga studio, Mae was advised by the teacher to check out Seattle Insight as a next step in meditation. After taking an Introduction to Meditation class from Rodney Smith, she became interested in exploring the spiritual journey about which Rodney is so passionate. In the last few years, Mae has found the Nine Bodies practice method (taught by Phillip Moffitt, Tuere Sala, and Dana DePalma) important to her Insight practice.

Mae is a Montana native and who, among many Montanans, moved to Seattle to find gainful employment. She retired after working as a research scientist and then an attorney. Her favorite thing to do is spend time in Brooklyn, NY with her granddaughter (and her daughter and son-in-law, too)–and so many books can be read on that long plane ride.

Steven was first introduced to Vipassana meditation in 2008 via a radio program on prison Vipassana instruction by the late teacher S.N. Goenka. He credits his practice and the Seattle Insight’s Death and Dying Support Group Project with “saving his life” through the difficult terminal illness of his late wife. Several Goenka retreats and Seattle Insight’s introductory classes later, Steven has made the Seattle Insight community his home. Along the way he received Rodney Smith’s blessing to train with Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts to facilitate the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction curriculum as a way to open the door to others to Vipassana meditation, and he has worked to establish a Vipassana program run by students at Bastyr University with guiding teacher Tuere Sala, as well as continuing to pursue several research projects on the physiology of meditation and focused attention. Steven feels privileged to serve as board secretary and at-large member representing introverts and shy singles.

With deep roots in Kansas, and a deep affinity with the Emerald City, Steven maintains close ties with both, continuing to teach neuroscience at Bastyr University and helping out during planting and harvest seasons on the family farm back home. He has three grown children, likes to kayak to work and work in the garden, and acknowledges that some cats and dogs seem to have taken up residence in his house.

Dave first encountered Seattle Insight through the intro to meditation class in 2020, and has taken the class again many times since. He finds particular joy in the dharma teachings of generosity, kindness, and compassion.

He works as a software engineer and lives in Magnolia with his wife, dog, and cat. In his free time, he enjoys volunteering with hospice patients and delivering supplies to people experiencing homelessness. He was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, and enjoys visiting often.

Judith Avinger has a long history with meditation and other spiritual practices in several traditions, including yoga, Sufism and Buddhism. She is also a mentor and leader of the Dances of Universal Peace, a moving meditation that draws from all spiritual paths.

She discovered Seattle Insight around ten years ago when she did a retreat with Tim and Keri at Cloud Mountain. Around the same time, she realized she was being drawn to the Buddhist teachings through the Dances of Universal Peace from that tradition. She moved back to Bellingham in
the spring of 2020 after living and working in Quebec for 30 years. Since the pandemic was at its height, she began looking for an online meditation group and rediscovered Seattle Insight. She has been meditating and studying with the Seattle Insight teachers since then. In addition to acting as a Local Dharma Leader, Judith is a member of the Seattle Insight Board of Directors.

In January of 2024, she retired from her long-time job as technical writer and translator for a software company in Montreal and began to devote even more of her time to her spiritual practices. She also spends her free time writing haiku, playing the piano and gardening.

Ghisly Garcia has a deep love for dharma practice that has grown steadily and all at once since her first retreat in 2013. She practices primarily in the Theravada tradition through the support of the Seattle Insight sangha, where she is a board member, volunteer, and Local Dharma Leader. She is a trained mindfulness educator through Inward BoundMindfulness Education and the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute. Ghisly is passionate about making ancient mindfulness practices accessible to BIPOC youth. 

Kalid joined Seattle Insight in 2018 while attending a daylong Rodney Smith talk with his aunt. He came to Seattle from Boston in 2003, and works remotely as a software engineer. He enjoys blogging about intuitive math explanations, snowboarding, and Brazilian Ju Jitsu.

Since joining Seattle Insight, Kalid and his wife Valerie eagerly attend weekly sits and retreats. He looks forward to serving the Sangha and deepening his practice.

Volunteer Coordinator Board position is currently vacant. Adam Curry is acting as Volunteer Coordinator as a non-board role.