Cyndi Lee

Cyndi Lee is a yoga and meditation teacher who weaves yoga asana together with Tibetan Buddhism. She began teaching meditation 30 years ago with the blessing of her root guru, the Tibetan master Gelek Rimpoche, and in 2018 was ordained as a Buddhist Chaplain under the guidance of Roshi Joan Halifax of Upaya Zen Center. Her website describes her as the first female Western yoga teacher to fully integrate yoga asana and Tibetan Buddhism in her practice and teaching.

From 1998 to 2012 she founded and ran OM yoga Center in New York City, a yoga studio and dharma center, and the first NYC studio to offer Buddhist meditation classes. She has trained thousands of meditators and yogis worldwide, and offers online classes, teacher trainings in restorative yoga, mindfulness meditation and pranayama, and retreats. Her community, Lifting the Gaze, is a sangha that meets three times a month.

Before teaching full-time, Cyndi was a fixture of New York's downtown modern dance scene, choreographing and performing with her own company and choreographing more than 20 music videos. She grew up in Seattle, the daughter of a Protestant minister and a tailor and ceramist, and earned an MFA at UC Irvine with a thesis on women, spirituality and Indian dance. Her final concert, "Dharma Dances" in 1994, featured Allen Ginsberg, after which she turned to teaching yoga.

She is the author of six books, including Yoga Body, Buddha Mind, the memoir May I Be Happy, OM yoga: A Guide to Daily Practice, and Long Life Yoga. She writes for Yoga Journal, Lion's Roar and Real Simple. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she enjoys knitting, sewing and reading.