Cyndi Lee is a teacher ofmindful yoga, a combination ofTibetan Buddhist practice andyoga as exercise. She has an international reputation and is the author of several books on her approach and runs her business from New York City.[1]
Cyndi Lee was born inSeattle; her father was aprotestant minister; her mother was a tailor andceramicist. She was educated atChapman College, California, starting in 1971. She gained herMFA atUniversity of California, Irvine, with a thesis on "Women, Spirituality and Indian Dance". She won an Art History Fellowship to theWhitney Museum of American Art in New York and started to teach yoga around 1980 inGreenwich Village, working also as achoreographer ofmusic videos.[2]
Lee states that her "root guru" was the Tibetan masterGelek Rimpoche, from the late 1980s. She began teaching meditation by 1990. She trained as a lay Buddhist chaplain under Roshi Joan Halifax at Upaya Zen Center in 2013, and was ordained in 2018.
Most impacted[3] by yoga teachersSharon Gannon,Rodney Yee andB.K.S. Iyengar. She founded the OM yoga centre in New York City in 1998, closing it in 2012.
She runsteacher training courses inmeditation andrestorative yoga.[2] She runs workshops and trainings across America including atKripalu,[4] and in Europe at venues such as London's Triyoga.[5]
She has published five books on yoga and Buddhism, and writes for magazines includingYoga Journal,[6] where she began its "Vinyasa/Home Practice" column,[7]Real Simple, andLion's Roar.[2][8]
The yoga and meditation teacher and authorAnne Cushman, reviewingYoga Body, Buddha Mind forTricycle: The Buddhist Review, writes that Lee's book was the most readable of the threemindful yoga works she was reviewing. Cushman states that "Lee is well known as both an inspiring teacher and a good storyteller, and has a wide following from her books, retreats, and Om Yoga in a Box practice kits."[9]
Kathleen Kraft, interviewing Lee forYoga International, writes that Lee had been a featured teacher[10] on the site, and was "not afraid to reinvent herself". She describes Lee as an "influential and soulful yoga teacher".[11]
Nirmala Nataraj, inYogi Times, calls Lee's combination of Hatha Yoga and Tibetan Buddhism "a unique way to explore yoga's discipline".[12]
Susanna Smith, reviewingOM Yoga in a Box for VideoFitness.com, found the package of audio and practical materials an excellent deal, containing "very doable" exercises with "much less woo woo thanYoga Chants byShiva Rea".[13]
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