Graduate Spotlight: Rachel Cronin

Rachel came to the Engaged Mindfulness Institute's Mindfulness Teacher Training with a wealth of experience in meditation, mindfulness, and traditional Buddhist dharma. Having studied with teachers in India and North America across all three vehicles of Buddhism, her path has included years of immersion in Gelug/Kagyu approaches to Mahāmudrā and the Nyingma Dzogchen tradition, as well as deep training at the intersection of neuroscience and contemplative practice. EMI's trauma-sensitive mindfulness training offered her a natural next step — a way to ground her practice in frameworks that could meet people where they are, including those carrying the weight of trauma, marginalization, and systemic harm.

What EMI Made Possible

Rachel came to the MTT with a clear intention: to practice with and learn from underserved and underrepresented communities. The training gave her both the tools and the community to deepen that commitment. She describes the peer learning environment as one of the program's greatest gifts — hearing how fellow students approached the same material from such different vantage points illuminated how many alive and accessible ways there are to meet any given subject. "How wonderful it's been — and how much I learned — through being connected with a group of co-students and facilitators of such varying backgrounds and experience, all seeking to be of service by bringing mindfulness into their worlds in various ways. So inspirational and nourishing."

Even the friction of group dynamics became part of the learning — a live practice ground for embodied listening, open-ended inquiry, and non-reactivity. This is exactly what EMI's cohort model is designed to cultivate: not just knowledge transfer, but genuine transformation through community.

Perhaps the deepest shift the training catalyzed was an interior one. Rachel grew significantly more attuned to the ways her own needs and biases can shape the facilitation space — and to the ongoing work of creating environments where all participants feel genuinely safe, seen, and supported. She also found herself learning to trust simplicity: that a teacher doesn't need to offer everything at once, and that not-knowing, bearing witness, and staying open are themselves a form of teaching. These are hallmarks of the EMI approach, and Rachel embodies them.

Service at the Margins

Rachel's feedback to EMI also reflected a teacher paying close attention to the world her students inhabit — noting the particular pressures faced by Asian-American communities, 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals, and those navigating threats to reproductive rights, and suggesting that future training modules engage more directly with these realities. It is exactly this kind of thoughtful, engaged feedback from graduates that helps EMI continue to evolve its curriculum in ways that are genuinely responsive to the moment we are living in.

Today Rachel teaches online meditation programs — both Buddhist and secular — to an international student community through her website All Along Meditation, and offers mindfulness classes at a residential substance-use treatment center in East Vancouver — bringing the trauma-sensitive, community-centered approach she developed through EMI directly into settings that need it most.

What's Next

Rachel is co-teaching two online weekend retreats at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies with Lama John Makransky this year. The first, Becoming Transparent to the Unconditional Love and Wisdom of Our Buddha Nature, takes place March 14–15, 2026. The second, Innate Wholeness as a Profound Power of Healing for Self and Others, takes place September 26–27, 2026. Both retreats are hosted on Zoom and open to practitioners of all backgrounds.

This is the kind of work EMI exists to support — practitioners who bring depth, rigor, and genuine care to the communities they serve. We are proud to count Rachel among our graduates and look forward to watching her work continue to flourish.

Ready to Begin Your Own Journey?

Rachel's path is a powerful example of what becomes possible when deep practice meets skilled, trauma-sensitive training. EMI's Mindfulness Teacher Training — the same program that shaped Rachel's teaching — is now enrolling for its April 2026 cohort.

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The MTT is a 12-month, cohort-based professional certification program leading to the CMT-P credential, the highest level offered by the International Mindfulness Teachers Association. With a community of fellow practitioners, experienced facilitators, and a curriculum designed to meet the complexity of the world we're teaching in, the MTT offers something rare: training that transforms not just what you teach, but how you show up.