Fred Eppsteiner

Fred Eppsteiner (born March 27, 1945) is an American Zen Buddhist teacher, trained in both Zen and Tibetan lineages.^[1] Fred Eppsteiner is a Dharma teacher (Dharmacharya) in the lineage of Thich Nhat Hanh, has been a student of Buddhism and a practitioner of meditation for over fifty years and has devoted himself to teaching the Dharma (teachings of the Buddha) since 1996. ^[2]

Born and raised in a secular Jewish household,^[3] Fred spent part of his youth engaged in social activism before encountering Buddhism in the late 1960s at the Rochester Zen Center in upstate New York with Philip Kapleau.^[4]

Fred met Thich Nhat Hanh in 1975.^[5] After befriending Thích Nhất Hạnh, Eppsteiner traveled to India and studied Vajrayana-Dzogchen Buddhism from Tibetan monks.^[3] Eppsteiner became a member of the Order of Interbeing in 1983 and served as the editor for two of Thích Nhất Hạnh's books: The Path of Compassion: Writings on Socially Engaged Buddhism^[6] and Interbeing: The Fourteen Precepts of Engaged Buddhism,^[7][8] the latter establishing the framework for the Order of Interbeing. In 1994, Eppsteiner received Dharma Transmission from Thich Nhất Hạnh, joining the lineage of the Linji school (Lâm Tế).^[6]

Fred lived in Naples, Florida, where he practiced psychotherapy^[9] and founded the Naples Community of Mindfulness in 1998.^[10] Fred currently serves as the Dharma Teacher of the Florida Community of Mindfulness in Tampa, Florida.^[6]