Letting Go

Dharma and Mindfulness

Ian Challis

“Do everything with a mind that lets go. Do not expect any praise or reward. If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will know complete peace and freedom. Your struggles with the world will have come to an end.”

– Ajahn Chah, A Still Forest Pool

Ian Challis

I’m a student and meditation teacher in the Insight Tradition of Buddhism. I teach events regularly at Insight Community of the Desert, a Buddhist sangha in Palm Springs, where I am the past guiding teacher, and now a member of our guiding council.

After many years of interest in meditation and dharma, travels and chance meetings with teachers in Bhutan inspired a committed practice. Since 2005 I have known that this is my path. When the heart gets a glimpse of tranquility and stillness, something amazing happens — you remember — and it becomes possible to stop the war, stop the running and make peace with what is.

I’ve studied and sat retreats with Arinna Weisman, Rodney Smith, Santikaro, Narayan Liebenson, Larry Yang, Leigh Brasington, Marcia Rose, Sylvia Boorstein, Tara Brach and Joseph Goldstein, among many others. Through her writings, I revere Venerable Ayya Khema as a root teacher. I’m deeply grateful for the kindness and wisdom of H.E. Lhalung Sungtrul Rinpoche, of Drametse, Kenchogsum and Tamshing Bhutan, and Lama Tseten and Lama Karma of Tamshing and Kenchogsum.

In addition to my work as a dharma teacher and meditation instructor, I work as an artist, web and product designer. I lived in Seattle for most of my life, and now make my full-time home in Palm Springs, CA with my husband, musician David Roos.

In addition to teaching at Insight Community, I offer dharma and retreats as invited, I am a qualified teacher of MBSR, and a trainer at UC San Diego’s Mindfulness Based Professional Training Institute. I was certified to teach in 2017 through the fifth iteration of Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Community Dharma Leaders Program. In 2022 I was formally invited to teach by Arinna Weisman in the lineage of U Ba Khin and Ruth Denison.