For 15 years David has practiced deeply in the secular mediation linage of Shambhala, which was founded by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and in its Tibetan Buddhist counterpart lead by his son, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, for whom David worked closely as a personal aide. He was trained and certified as a Mediation Instructor in those lineages in 2017. 

     After the birth of their first child in 2019, his family resettled in Mississippi, David’s home state, where they began a homestead, now budding into a retreat center called Marpa Farms. David’s spiritual practices deepened with the return home, as the clear waters he’d known in Buddhism mixed with the baptismal fount of his birthplace. He is a Contemplative Spiritual Director, and is an associate in the Spiritual Guidance Program, class of 2026, at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation. He leads mediation and small prayer groups, and offer retreats that join the insights of eastern and western religious traditions.  

     Currently, his practice is nourished by the teachings of Cynthia Bourgault and Kabir Helminski, Christian/Fourthway and Sufi mystics respectively. He believes that the spiritual path begins as it ends, with primordial goodness and worthiness of experience. He is interested in what he calls the “day-long living prayer” using “applied spirituality” towards that end. He is curious about the circumstances in which the world’s religious and wisdom traditions may open to one another without the depth of their singularities being lost in the process.  

     He is available as a mediation instructor, spiritual director, retreat leader, writer, and speaker.