Robert Beatty

About Robert Beatty

Robert Beatty is a member of the first wave of Theravada Buddhist teachers who brought Insight Meditation and Mindfulness from Asia in the 1970s. In his teaching, Robert meets people where they are. He has worked with thousands of students and created a unique synthesis of Buddhist methods of awakening and healing and those of western psychotherapy. His unique teaching style, and his life affirming, human approach, enhance the traditional teachings. His honest vulnerability in sharing his journey is a super power that leads by example, inspiring deep contemplation. Robert shares the Dharma with warmth and grit – blending meditation, humor, music, poetry, movement, and human experience to guide others in meeting life’s beauty and difficulty with an openhearted presence.

Robert has had the blessings of several fine teachers. He was a student of Ruth Denison for 43 years until her death in 2015. In 1982, Ruth authorised Robert to teach in the Burmese Buddhist Lineage of U Ba Khin. Robert also studied non-dual spirituality with Matthew Flickstein for ten years in Burma, where he took novice ordination with Tangpulu Sayadaw. In India, he practiced under the guidance of USN Goenka, Bhikku Rastropol, and Anagarika Munindra.

Robert is a seasoned teacher, student of the mind, and traveller. At 21 years old, after receiving his BSc in Psychology and Chemistry from McGill University in Canada, Robert signed onto an ocean freighter, and for the next five years travelled broadly. He lived and worked in Australia and Switzerland. In 1972, on a Goenka retreat, he had a profound encounter with Buddhist meditation that changed his life. He went on to become a monk in India but had to disrobe because of an acute health issue and return to Canada.

While traveling, he was shaken by the degree of environmental collapse that was already happening in the world. On his return to Canada, he attended York University in Toronto, where he received a Master’s degree in Environmental Studies (MES). He encountered western psychotherapy in that program and began his life’s work of synthesizing this with meditation. His studies all focused on two questions: “How can humans become sensitive to how they affect the natural world, and how can we learn to live in greater harmony with nature and each other?”

In 1979 Robert moved to Portland, Oregon. He obtained his Master of Social Work degree from Portland State University. He worked for several years in addictions treatment as a Relapse Specialist and Meditation Teacher at Springbrook NW. Following experiences with the realities of sickness, old age, death and dying, Robert worked for several years as a Social worker at Providence Willamette Falls Hospice.