Manager and Resident Teachers

Marion Gruzalski is the manager and a resident teacher at Sunyata. Marion founded the Hospice at the Texas Medical Center after losing two daughters and a son. Her work in hospice ended in 2007 when she left the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco, where she led weekly meditations. Marion has led one-day retreats and has led workshops with hospices across the United States. She has practiced meditation for over 25 years, spent many monastic winter retreat periods at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery under the spiritual guidance of Ajahn Sumedho, as well as co-founded and co-led a weekly group in Boston.

Bart Gruzalski Bart Gruzalski, Ph.D., is a voluntary resident teacher at Sunyata Retreat Centre. Bart taught courses for sixteen years in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Northeastern University in Boston, primarily focusing on Indian Religions and Ecology Ethics. He voluntarily left his tenured position to help found, with his wife Marion, a centre for sustainable living. The aim of the centre was to offer courses and meditation that focused on the ecological, social and psychological needs of people to live more sustainably, in community, and with a shared inner practice. Bart has written a book on Buddhism and a book on the philosophy of Gandhi. He has over 35 years of meditation practice, has focused for the past 25 years on mindfulness mediation, has taught meditation in a number of venues, and currently is a volunteer resident teacher at Sunyata. Bart is writing a biography of Luang Por Sumedho, the abbot of Amaravati Buddhist Monastery, under whose guidance he has practiced for decades.