Dave Potter

My fascination with eastern religions and philosophy began when I checked out "Autobiography of a Yogi" from the public library as a teenager, and my first real instruction in meditation came from a teacher at a Vedanta center just around the corner from my UC Berkeley dormitory. My interest and practice of various types of meditation continued through multiple life-changes (leaving a PhD program in mathematics to work at Intel, then founding a small software company in Idaho, and finally leaving the tech world at age 51 to get a masters in counseling and become licensed as a psychotherapist). Through all of these changes, while I considered meditation to be central to my daily life, it was strictly a personal practice until I took my first MBSR class in 2004.

I had read Jon Kabat-Zinn's books and was familiar with the concepts introduced there, but was astounded by MBSR. Here was a non-religious, non-esoteric form of meditation that was simple and pragmatic, yet it contained the deepest of truths, and best of all, could be practiced by anyone because didn’t require them to give up their beliefs or faith (or adopt someone else's). From that moment, it became my mission to share this with others, starting with teaching an in-person 8-week MBSR course to people in my community, and now with the Palouse Mindfulness online course.

I love that we are able to make this powerful way of learning meditation available to anyone, anywhere, regardless of financial resources or geographical location. I am thrilled and grateful to have such good company in furthering this cause (see Our Team).

You can contact Dave through the Contact page.