Jess McNally

Founder + lead researcher

Jess is the main person developing this initiative, including the research, web and course design. She was raised in Canada, and graduated with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Earth Systems from Stanford University in 2010.

After graduating, she lived for three years at Zen Mountain Monastery in New York. She then decided to pursue her interest in Tibetan Buddhism, and was ordained as a novice monastic by Thrangu Rinpoche in 2015. After ordaining, she spent two years in India, including several months in solitary retreat in Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo’s famous cave in the Indian Himalayas.

While she was in India, she also became a student of Mingyur Rinpoche, and in 2017 she moved to Madison, Wisconsin, to participate in the Tergar Meditation Community there, as well as start this initiative.

In 2018, she decided to return to lay life. She continues to practice, and is a Facilitator in the Tergar Meditation Community. Despite no longer being ordained, Jess has deep respect for and interest in monastic life, and continues to work on this initiative. She lives in Banff, Alberta, Canada.

Tim olmsted

founder + project consultant

Tim began his Buddhist studies in 1977 under the late Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in Boulder, Colorado. In 1981, Trungpa Rinpoche invited Mingyur Rinpoche’s father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, to teach in Boulder. Profoundly moved by him, Tim and his family moved just a few months later to Kathmandu to study with Tulku Urgyen and his sons. During the twelve years that he lived in Nepal, Tim studied with many of the older teachers living there and worked as a psychotherapist serving the international community.

In 2000, Tim moved to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia where he served for three years as the director of Gampo Abbey, the largest residential Buddhist monastery in North America. He is presently the president of the Pema Chödrön Foundation, which supports this initiative.

In 2003, after a visit by Mingyur Rinpoche to Gampo Abbey, Tim started the Yongey Foundation to support and promote Mingyur Rinpoche’s activities in the West. He also helped start the Tergar Meditation Community and is one of the main instructors. Tim lives with his wife Glenna in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.