Teachers and Speakers

Find out who teaches and designs lectures for the BuddhaStiftung

The teachers of the BuddhaStiftung

Get to know the teachers who lead the BuddhaStiftung’s courses online and on-site.

Jochen Weber

Jochen Weber is a Vipassana and mindfulness meditation teacher and an internist, and in 2002, together with his wife Regina Tröscher, he founded the BuddhaStiftung as a non-profit foundation and has managed it ever since.

A long-time practitioner in the secular Buddhist tradition of Stephen and Martine Batchelor, Sylvia Wetzel, and others. In the early 2000s, he was one of the first certified MBSR teachers in Germany after an extended training stay with Jon Kabat-Zinn in the USA and a founding member of the MBSR Association.

Saskia Graf

Saskia Graf values a cross-traditional, universal approach to the Buddha-Dharma and therefore practices in the forest tradition of Theravada, in Secular Buddhism, and in the Zen tradition of Felsentor. She is committed to the values of evolutionary-humanistic ethics, evidence-based scientific research, and a contemporary worldview for the well-being of all sentient beings and our environment.

Ulla König

Ulla has her roots in the Vipassana and Theravada traditions. She conveys the wisdom of Buddhist discourses with the aim of contributing to greater contentment, inner peace, and connection.

In her courses, she combines somatic bodywork and trauma-sensitive mindfulness with Buddhist perspectives.

As a working mother herself, it is important to her that the teachings prove effective in everyday life and are directly experienceable.

Grit Kasper

Grit is a meditation teacher for the Independent Vipassana Meditation Group Heidelberg. She was trained as a Vipassana teacher by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach, has two children, and works as a biotechnologist.

Ayda Duroux

Ayda is a doctor and MBCT teacher with many years of experience in pediatric intensive care and palliative medicine. Her particular interest lies in communication in the medical field and the personal challenges in healthcare. With this motivation, she studied at the University of Oxford and completed a Master’s in MBCT (Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy) in 2016.

Ayda has been practicing for more than ten years and regularly participates in retreats focusing on secular Buddhism.

Ursula Gramm

Ursula is an MBSR and yoga teacher and translates for the BuddhaStiftung. She is one of the leaders of the Independent Vipassana Group Heidelberg.

Guest speakers of the BuddhaStiftung

Meet the guest speakers who have already taught lectures and courses for the BuddhaStiftung.

Winton Higgins

Winton Higgins is an Australian meditation teacher for the Sydney Insight Meditators. He began practicing Dharma in 1987 and has been teaching insight meditation, including at retreats, since 1995. The BuddhaStiftung is cooperating with Winton in building a global secular Buddhist network. His workbook on Stephen Batchelor’s foundational work “Buddhism Without Beliefs” is being published in German by the BuddhaStiftung. Further contributions to the Dharma by him have appeared in the Journal of Global Buddhism and at secularbuddhism.org.

Thomas Metzinger

Thomas Metzinger is a professor emeritus at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and a member of the German National Academy Leopoldina. As a philosopher, he has worked for many years at the interface between philosophy of mind and cognitive neuroscience and also deals with the ethical, anthropological, and socio-cultural consequences of progress in neuroscience and artificial intelligence.

Sylvia Wetzel

Sylvia Wetzel (born 1949) studied Russian and Political Science (graduated 1975) and has been engaged with paths to psychological and political liberation since 1968 and with Buddhism since 1977. Trained in the Tibetan tradition with Lama Thubten Yeshe and others, two years of practice as a nun, experience with Rinzai Zen, Theravada, and the Tara Rokpa process. With her critical perspective on culture and gender roles, she is a pioneer of Buddhism in Europe, making complex topics accessible to a broad audience in understandable language through courses and books. www.sylvia-wetzel.de

Hendrik Hortz

Hendrik is a Buddhist, religious scholar, journalist, and entrepreneur. He identifies with the achievements of the Enlightenment and Humanism and is guided by the vision of a free, emancipatory, and tolerant society. He learned meditation more than 40 years ago. Hendrik is the publisher and editor-in-chief of the print and online magazine Ursache&Wirkung, as well as the operator of the oldest and largest Buddhist online forum Buddhaland.