Caitriona Reed

{{Autobiography|date=February 2019}}

{{Infobox person

|name = Caitriona Reed

|image = Caitriona_Reed.jpg

|caption =

|birth_name = Christopher Reed

|alias =

|birth_date = {{birth year and age|1949}}

|birth_place = Los Angeles, California

|nationality =

|education =

|occupation = Public speaker, seminar leader, hypnotherapist, performance coach, meditation and zen teacher

|partner = Michele Benzamin-Miki

|children =

|website = {{URL|www.FiveChanges.com|FiveChanges.com}}

}}

Caitriona Reed (born 1949) is an American sensei of Thiền Zen Buddhism who also has a background in Vipassanā meditation. She co-founded Ordinary Dharma in Los Angeles, California; the rural Manzanita Village Retreat Center, located in San Diego County; and Five Changes, to mentor aspiring leaders, cultural creatives, and spiritual visionaries. Reed, a member of the American Zen Teachers Association, led retreats and workshops in Vipassana, Deep Ecology, and Buddhism 1981–2008. She received authority to teach Zen from Thich Nhat Hanh in 1992.{{cite web | last=Reed | first=Caitriona | last2=DeMaioNewton | first2=Emily | title=A Transgender Buddhist Trailblazer 20+ Years Later | website=Tricycle: The Buddhist Review | date=26 July 2019 | url=https://tricycle.org/article/caitriona-reed/ | access-date=11 September 2024}}

She is a 'woman of transsexual experience' who transitioned in 1996. She stated about her transitioning, "As a teacher encouraging others to live more honest and authentic lives, it was increasingly difficult for me to deny a basic fact—that I was a woman."{{cite web |last=Yar |first=Harriette |title=Just Another Dharma bum: Buddhist teacher Caitríona Reed |publisher=The Advocate |date=2006-12-19 |url=http://www.advocate.com/news/2006/12/04/just-another-dharma-bum |accessdate=2008-02-16 }}

Currently, informed by her work as a Buddhist teacher, Reed focuses on public speaking; mentoring individual clients; and together with her partner Michele Benzamin-Miki conducting professional certification training in neuro-linguistic programming and hypnotherapy with an emphasis holistic approaches to life-coaching and personal and professional mentorship.{{cite book |last=Badiner |first=Allan Hunt |title=Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology |publisher=Parallax Press |year=1990 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/dharmagaiaharves00badi/page/261 261] |isbn=0-938077-30-9 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/dharmagaiaharves00badi/page/261 }}{{cite book |last=Gottlieb |first=Roger S. |title=Liberating Faith: Religious Voices for Justice, Peace, and Ecological Wisdom |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers |year=2003 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/liberatingfaithr2003unse/page/533 533] |isbn=0-7425-2534-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/liberatingfaithr2003unse/page/533 }}{{Cite web|url=http://www.americanzenteachers.org/list.html |title=American Zen Teachers |accessdate=2008-02-18 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928030212/http://www.americanzenteachers.org/list.html |archivedate=2007-09-28 |url-status=dead }}

Personal life

Reed is a trans woman, publicly identifying as transgender in April 1998. Although this was the first time she publicly came out, Reed stated close friends had known for around twenty years.{{cite web | last=Decisions | first=Committed | last2=Buddhism | first2=Thien | title=Coming Out Whole | website=Inquiring Mind | date=10 June 2020 | url=https://inquiringmind.com/article/1402_15_reed_coming-out-whole/ | access-date=11 September 2024}}

Prior to her transition Reed married her long-time partner (since 1981) artist, Aikido and Iaido Sensei Michele Benzamin-Miki. They continue living and working together.

Published Essays

  • Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology (Alan Hunt Badiner, Editor)
  • What Makes A Man: 22 Writers Imagine The Future (2004) (Rebecca Walker, Editor)
  • The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women (2012) (Florence Caplow and Susan Moon, Editors)

See also

References

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