Meet the Team

  • Maia is a healer and a storyteller. Previously she has worked as a social researcher, editor and teacher. She has facilitated transformative storytelling, self-expression and listening projects with people in schools, NGOs, through art projects and on retreats. She is also an initiated healer within the West African Dagara tradition.

    Maia has been exploring meditation since she was 17 and first started practicing with Kittisaro and Thanissara at Dharmagiri in 2014. She was the co-founder of ‘lalela. a place of listening’, with her partner Niel, which was a home, farm and space for retreat in Magaliesburg for five years. Here they hosted retreats integrating mindfulness, art and healing. Her main aim is to create spaces of gentle holding where we can all just be ourselves. Maia’s poetry can be accessed at https://maiamaries.wordpress.com/

    Maia blesses the team with her organisational skills, her warm facilitation and her powerful work as a healer who is deeply intuitive.

  • niel is a 10th generation South African, born and raised on a sheep-farm outside Edenburg in the southern Free State.

    Before moving to Dharmagiri in November of 2022, he and Maia founded and ran a small retreat centre outside Magaliesburg called ‘lalela. a place of listening‘ for five years. niel previously trained as a monastic at the Chithurst buddhist monastery in the UK, and has drawn inspiration for his practice from Kittisaro and Thanissara, Ajahn Brahm, Antony Osler, Ajahn Sucitto, and Thich Nhat Hanh.

    niel is a cellist and has in the past worked as a South African diplomat, beekeeper and mushroom cultivator. He is a proud co-parent of Freddy and Luna, the two corgis resident at Dharmagiri. niel is honoured and grateful to be able to live, love and work on Mvuleni mountain at Dharmagiri.

    niel graces Dharmagiri with 16 years of meditation and deep listening practice that can be felt in his facilitation, the way in which he takes care of the needs of the centre and the land, and how he holds space for guests.

  • Nompilo has been a part of the Dharmagiri family since she was a young girl. Her family has worked closely with Kittisaro and Thanissara since the nineteen nineties.. Nompilo and her partner are the proud parents of two children. She has been cooking professionally for the past eight years at Underberg Country club finessing her culinary skills.

    She officially joined the Dharmagiri team in January 2021 and has been an anchor for the team since then.

    She has a passion for healthy cooking and providing sweet surprises during the retreats. She makes Dharmagiri a truly South African centre with her wholesome meals that reflect our local grains, plants and vegetables. She has a deep spiritual practice that can be felt when you are in her still and peaceful presence.

  • Phumla began her meditation practice 20 years ago and this practice opened up the door to her ever deepening spiritual lifestyle. She is now a multi-certified yoga teacher, a Mindfulness Meditation Teacher and a healer.

    Her corporate career centred around managing in-house SETA accredited courses for large organisations. Upon leaving the corporate world she founded and ran her own yoga studio for years, and also worked as an educator at a preschool.

    She is humbled and honoured to be living, working and practising at Dharmagiri.

    Phumla brings her visionary nature, intuition and joyful energy to her skillful guidance of our retreat programme and communications. She also plays in the kitchen and facilitates retreats with soulful depth.

  • Born in 2017 in the Free State, Freddy identifies as a protector of his humans and a lover of nature walks and food. He loves cuddles when he is available for them.

    Born in Pretoria in 2020, Luna sees herself as a puppy-for-life and a fairy. She enjoys living a care-free life and cherishes the company of her best friend Freddy.

Founders & Elders

  • Kittisaro graduated from Princeton as a Rhodes Scholar and went on to Oxford before going to Thailand to ordain with Ajahn Chah in 1976.

    He was a monk for 15 years, during that time helped found Chithurst Monastery and Devon Vihara in the UK, trained monks, was a prison Chaplain, and taught extensively.

    He disrobed in 1991 and since then has taught internationally. He co-founded Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat in 2000 and helped initiate and support a number of HIV/Aids response projects in South Africa.

    In 2017, Kittisaro and Thanissara co-founded Sacred Mountain Sangha in Northern California which hosts training classes, events and retreats grounded in their unique synthesis of Insight Meditation and the Kuan Yin Dharmas.

    He has studied and practiced Chan and Pure Land for 35 years, informed by the Chinese school of Master Hua, and has completed two year-long silent self-retreats. With Thanissara, he is co-author of Listening to the Heart, A Contemplative Journey to Engaged Buddhism. Kittisaro is a member of the Spirit Rock Teacher Council.

  • Thanissara started Buddhist practice in the Burmese school in 1975. She was inspired to ordain after meeting Ajahn Chah and spent 12 years as a Buddhist nun, where she was a founding member of Chithurst Monastery and Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in the UK.

    She has facilitated meditation retreats internationally for the last 30 years and has an MA in Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy Practice from Middlesex University & the Karuna Institute in the UK.

    With Kittisaro, she co-founded Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat and helped initiate and support a number of HIV/Aids response projects in South Africa.

    In 2017, Thanissara and Kittisaro co-founded the Non-Profit Sacred Mountain Sangha in Northern California, which hosts training classes, retreats, and events grounded in their unique synthesis of Insight Meditation and the Kuan Yin Dharmas. In early 2022, Thanissara co-founded PAEAN: Peoples Alliance for Earth Action Now, focused on Dharma-based climate activism.

    She has written several books, including two poetry books. Her latest book is Time To Stand Up, An Engaged Buddhist Manifesto for Our Earth. Thanissara is a member of the Spirit Rock Teacher Council.

  • Mandaza Augustine Kandemwa was born a Svikiro, a carrier of many earth and water spirits, and a Mhondoro, Lion Spirit, and one who is in constant prayer on behalf of others. As a vessel of the Spirits, Mandaza receives visions and dreams, makes offerings, performs healing rituals, and serves as a messenger for the Ancient Ones.

    Baba Mandaza teaches us to become “living prayers” so we can be in service of the One Spirit that exists in all things. He lives in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and travels far and wide as a Peacemaker. As an emissary of Mother Nature, Baba Mandaza guides retreats, healing ceremonies, and gatherings around the world.

Board of Directors

  • Moyra Keane, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the University of Johannesburg and an Educational Developer and Research consultant for a number of universities. She has a number of formal coaching qualifications. She coordinates and teaches on postgraduate courses

  • Nolitha Tsengiwe is an experienced Executive Coach and a registered Psychologist with over 20 years of work experience in leadership development, team & executive coaching, lecturing and psychotherapy. She has varied international exposure and was trained by Spirit Rock as a coach in cross-culture adaptation for Emzingo - an international organization for Social Change. Nolitha also runs her own leadership development consulting company-Courage to Lead.

  • Shivani Ranchod has had a multi-faceted career that traverses conscious leadership, health system redesign, independent advisory, mindfulness, organisation building and design, and academia. She works with Percept in a strategic capacity, drawing on her leadership, commercial, academic, and health systems expertise. Her life’s work is to re-build institutions, ways of work, ways of being and forms of ownership based on mutuality and a deep honouring of our interconnectedness.