Chögé Susan Lorraine

Chögé Susan Lorraine has been a student of Buddhism for almost 50 years. She lived, practiced and navigated through the brilliance and tragedies of the Shambhala community, soaking in the stages of the Kagyü and Shambhala paths as presented by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and also the vibrancy of Naropa University, dharma arts, the Kasung path of nonaggression, and the sangha rituals and vision of family and community life. In 2016 she met Lama Tsultrim and found a new spiritual home in Tara Mandala, joining the Magyu path and later the Ösel Nyingtig cycle. She is a certified Feeding Your Demons and Kapala 1 instructor, a Magyu Kayanamitra, and the coordinator of a local Tara Mandala sangha in Nova Scotia, where she has lived since 1986. For the past 20 years Susan has been working at the intersection of social change and Buddhist worldview, first as director of the international Authentic Leadership in Action (ALIA) Institute and more recently as founder of How We Thrive, a nonprofit that integrates Indigenous, narrative, decolonizing and systems change perspectives into transformative learning experiences in Nova Scotia/ Mi’kma’ki. Susan is also an editor, writer, mother and grandmother.