Tina Rasmussen, Ph.D.

Tina’s teaching is known for its warmth, luminous clarity, and steady support, helping students come into contact with their deeper nature both in meditation and in everyday life. For decades, she has been devoted to nurturing her own spiritual unfolding and supporting that same process in others while remaining fully engaged in worldly, embodied living.

Early Practice and Ordination

She first learned to meditate in 1976, when she was 13 years old. In 2003, after many years of practice within Buddhist and modern non-dual traditions, she felt called to undertake an intensive year-long solo retreat, during which a profound awakening to Reality arose. Two years later, in 2005, Tina attended a retreat with Burmese meditation master Ven. Pa Auk Sayadaw, who ordained her as a Buddhist nun. During that retreat, she became the first Western woman to complete the full Samatha path in this lineage. Tina also took refuge with Tsoknyi Rinpoche, a Tibetan Dzogchen teacher, and received initiation into the Nyingma lineage.

Teaching and Publications

In gratitude to the dharma, Tina and Stephen Snyder co-authored Practicing the Jhanas, later published by Shambhala. Then, in 2007, Tina became the first Western woman authorized by Ven. Pa Auk Sayadaw to teach.

Integration of Wisdom Paths

Following these transformative experiences, Tina initially felt a strong desire to become a “cave yogi” and leave householder life behind in order to dwell in the peace and bliss of Truth. Over time, however, she became increasingly drawn to the possibility of living from realization while fully participating in the vitality of the modern world. She went on to study the Diamond Approach, a contemporary wisdom path for householders that weaves the psychological and the spiritual into a single continuum for living “in the world but not of it.” Her work has also been studied by the Yale Neuroscience Lab for research on meditation’s effects on consciousness and the brain, and she has been featured in Awakening Women, Non-duality Magazine, and Conscious TV.

Professional Background

Today, Tina leads retreats and offers spiritual mentoring to practitioners around the world. She has also worked for more than 25 years as an organizational development consultant and coach. She earned her Ph.D. in 1995 and has written several published books on humanistic business practices.