Celeste Young

Celeste Young is a mindfulness meditation and Dharma teacher who teaches in Los Angeles, California, and online around the world. Her website describes her work as "Mindfulness + Dharma," and she is known for introducing people to the fundamentals of meditation, for leading silent Insight meditation retreats, and for her work in mindfulness-based life balance and transition coaching. Since 2011 she has taught thousands of students.

Celeste first started formal meditation practice in 2002, and that year she also began sitting Buddhist meditation retreats. In 2011 she was invited to join the first teacher development cohort at InsightLA under its founder, Trudy Goodman, PhD, and she continued to train there for the next ten years. In 2017 she received formal teacher authorization in the Theravadin Buddhist lineage from Trudy Goodman and Jack Kornfield. She is a graduate of Spirit Rock Meditation Center's very first Advanced Practitioner Program, now called LEAP, and in 2016 she trained in Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing. She has sat multiple silent retreats in the Insight tradition each year for over eighteen years, including retreats of one to three months each year since 2011.

From 2012 to 2019 Celeste was the core teacher for InsightLA's Essentials of Mindfulness program, teaching several classes a week in person. She is a former member of the InsightLA teacher council and for many years mentored new teachers internationally in Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach's Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification program offered through Sounds True. In 2016 she founded the Young-ish Adult sitting group at InsightLA for people in their 20s to 40s. She has taught intermediate Buddhist and secular mindfulness classes, daylongs and residential retreats across Los Angeles, the United States, and in Sri Lanka, Spain, France, Germany, Canada and Mexico.

Her offerings include weekly online drop-in meditation and Dharma sessions, which combine a guided sitting, a short talk, and time for community discussion. She co-teaches retreats with other teachers, among them the online International Insight Retreat with Dr. Christiane Wolf and Jake Dartington, a New Year retreat on the Four Protective Meditations with Ayya Santacitta, and Resting in Metta with Dawn Scott. Those retreats include sitting, walking and eating meditation, Dharma talks and small group meetings with teachers. She also teaches in InsightLA's Meditation and Buddhist Practice program and its Deepening the Path program for experienced practitioners.

Celeste also offers Life Balance Sessions. She served as a core trainer with Phillip Moffitt and Jennifer Ward for the 2025 Life Balance Strategist cohort and now works as a strategist, seeing individuals and small groups online internationally. These sessions support people who want more balance, clearer priorities and a way to live their deepest values, and people going through changes and transitions. For companies and organizations she designs custom Workspace Sessions, from weekly class series of six, eight or ten weeks to guided meditations, workshops, half day retreats and individual mindful leadership sessions.

Her in-person teaching takes place around Los Angeles at the Santa Monica Meditation Center and at InsightLA's Benedict Canyon Retreat House, which sits on 18 preserved acres with quiet trails, wildlife and a simple hall for practice. She has also taught at the Big Bear Retreat Center in Big Bear, California.

Celeste's classes are open to beginners, and her retreats welcome both seasoned practitioners and people new to retreat practice. She says she is passionate about sharing mindfulness in creative ways, and she works to make the teachings accessible to a wider range of Angelenos and to the global community. Her drop-in sessions welcome "all hearts, bodies, and minds."