Marty Janowitz

Marty Janowitz has been a student of mindfulness, awareness, and Buddhism since encountering his teacher Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche at the age of 20. Over the decades since he has held a variety of roles in service to Rinpoche, his son Mipham Rinpoche and the broader Kagyu-Nyingma-Shambhala lineages. These included as an Acharya (senior teacher – retired 2019), Kusung Dapön (leader of the personal guardian attendants), and as the Shambhala Warrior General guiding the international Council of Warriors. He has taught the full spectrum of dharma and Shambhala levels and practices as an instructor and guide at many intensive meditation and practice seminaries, retreats and programs in North, Central and South America, Europe and Asia and remotely around the world, always focusing on ways dharma can be grounded personally to ‘walk the talk’.

As a senior teacher within the Shambhala lineage he is committed to its vision of an integrated path of inner and societal transformation that expresses the heart of awareness. In his sanghas in both Boulder Colorado and Nova Scotia Canada, Marty served in an array of initiatives including the creation and 50+ year journey of Naropa University, development of the first comprehensive meditation instructor program and as a pioneering teacher of the Shambhala Training levels. He was an early member of the Boards of Vajradhatu and later Shambhala, and accompanied Trungpa, Rinpoche as his personal secretary and attendant during a number of his worldwide teaching tours.

Marty dedicated his social engagement to environmental organizations locally and internationally, including as the volunteer Chair of the Nova Scotia Roundtable on Environment, President of the Nova Scotia Nature Trust and as Chair of the Authentic Leadership in Action (ALIA) Institute. Over the past eight years, Marty and his wife Susanna transitioned to a new base in central Mexico (Ajijic, Jalisco) where he became the senior teacher at the Heart of Awareness Buddhist sangha, teaching and sharing dharma and meditation instruction. He has offered programs in Mexico City, Tepoztlan and Patzcuaro and many classes remotely. He has also pursued training, certification and practice as an executive and life coach, drawing on the intertwined dimensions of his life experience.