Cyndi Lee began teaching meditation 30 years ago with the blessing of her root guru, the great Tibetan master, Gelek Rimpoche. In 2018 she was ordained as a Buddhist Chaplain, under the guidance of Roshi Joan Halifax of Upaya Zen Center.
Cyndi is also the first female Western yoga teacher to fully integrate yoga asana and Tibetan Buddhism in her practice and teaching. From 1998-2012, she founded and ran the renowned OM yoga Center, a yoga studio and dharma center. One of the most influential teachers in the U.S. Cyndi has trained thousands of meditators and yogis worldwide.
OM yoga Center was the first NYC studio to offer Buddhist meditation classes. Cyndi’s favorite student was her dad, Allan Lee, who took meditation training at the age of 75.
Cyndi is the author of five books including the classic yoga text: Yoga Body Buddha Mind. Other books are the The New York Times critically acclaimed May I Be Happy: A Memoir of Love, Yoga, and Changing My Mind and OM yoga: A Guide to Daily Practice.
Cyndi is regular contributor to Yoga Journal, Lion’s Roar, Real Simple, and has written for Yoga International, Tricycle, and Natural Health. Recent articles include “My Slow Fashion Practice is Yoga, Too” (YJ), and “The Practice of Self-Caring” (LR).
Cyndi has found that teaching meditation online is wonderful! It turns out that it is completely possible to experience genuine connection and community this way, and we get to people we might never meet any other way.
How did this all begin?
The daughter of a protestant minister dad and tailor/ceramist mom, Cyndi grew up in an environment that fostered creativity, play and spiritual seeking. Dancing around the living room of their Seattle home to “The Exotic Sounds of Martin Denny” was not uncommon. Family vacations were divided between camping at La WisWis in the Cascade Mountains, picking blackberries along the Columbia River and summers speaking Spanish in La Ciudad de Mexico. By the age of eight, Cyndi had dislocated her left elbow twice because climbing trees, rolling down sand dunes, ballet lessons, skiing, and cheerleading were just some of the ways she moved on a daily basis.
Yoga seemed like a natural choice when she went to Chapman College in 1971. It was southern California in the seventies, after all! Upon completion of her MFA thesis on Women, Spirituality and Indian Dance at UC, Irvine, Cyndi arrived in New York as a recipient of an Art History Fellowship to the Whitney Museum of American Art. This was a wonderful opportunity but not enough cash so Cyndi began teaching yoga in Greenwich Village.
Soon she became a fixture in NYC’s downtown modern dance scene, choreographing and performing primarily in XXY Dance/Music and Cyndi Lee Dance Company/Big Moves, Inc. Cyndi also choreographed over 20 music videos for Rick James, Simple Minds, Appolonia, the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, and many more including Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” which won the 1983 MTV Best Female Video of the Year award.
After meeting her root guru, Gelek Rimpoche, in the late 1980s, Cyndi’s practice of yoga and Buddhism merged with her choreography. In 1994, “Dharma Dances” was her last concert, which featured Allen Ginsberg singing his own songs and accompanying himself on harmonium. She said good bye to the dance world and starting teaching yoga full-time.
After 15 years of running OM yoga Center, Cyndi closed the studio in 2012 to allow more time for deepening her own practice. She attended Rohatsu, a deep Zen retreat with Roshi Joan Halifax and Enkyo Roshi at Upaya Zen Center in 2013 and was given jukai by Roshi Joan in 2013. In 2017 Cyndi graduated from the Upaya Buddhist Chaplaincy training program and was ordained by Roshi Joan in 2018.
One month before being ordained and month after being ordained Cyndi had a total hip replacement. This powerful experience has naturally led to a new, creative method for practicing yoga, that emphasizes curiosity, mobility, strength and slow flow.
Cyndi teaches a limited amount of workshops and trainings, in person and on-line.
Currently, her primary offerings are workshops on Sustainable Yoga, and the Resiliency Practices of Yoga and Buddhism, and she still teaches Yoga Body Buddha Mind annually at Kripalu Institute.
Cyndi offers in-person and on-line Meditation Teacher Trainings and Restorative Teacher Trainings. She has a limited number of private students working with her on developing a meditation practice as well as coaching for yoga teachers, all done via skype, zoom or facetime.
Cyndi has been featured on ABC’s Early Show; Live with Reggie and Kathie Lee; CBS’s Good Morning, America; FCNN; and other television shows as well as numerous publications such as The Wall Street Journal; The New York Times; Vogue and Time Out.
What is OM yoga?
OM yoga, an internationally recognized method of yoga founded by Cyndi Lee in 1996, is alignment-based vinyasa yoga, grounded in the dharma practices of mindfulness and compassion. If you are prepared to move, to apply clarity to your alignment, to watch your mind, to sweat, to stay steady, to get bored and let go, to engage and be inspired — welcome to OM yoga!
Learn More About Cyndi in this Yoga International Interview
by Kathleen Kraft
What style, tradition, and/or lineage are you a part of (if any)?
I teach OM Yoga, which is a three-part braid of vinyasa, precise alignment, and the Buddhist methods of mindfulness and compassion. This method arose organically over a period of years, as a result of my own passions: movement, precision, and Buddhadharma. My way of creating class structures and sequences is influenced by my training as a dancer. I was fortunate to study at the feet of some of the most important modern ballet choreographers of the last century, Antony Tudor and Eugene Loring. Sharon Gannon, Rodney Yee, and B.K.S. Iyengar also impacted my understanding of yoga. I have been a Tibetan Buddhist for about 30 years, studying and practicing with my root guru, Gelek Rimpoche, who authorized me to teach meditation many years ago. Over the last decade, I have also stepped into the Zen Buddhist lineage under the auspices of Roshi Joan Halifax, who ordained me as a Lay Buddhist Chaplain in 2018.
What can I expect from your classes?
Whatever we are working on—hip openers and closers, inversions, restorative poses—we are always exploring how the body is the vehicle for getting to know the mind. Mindfulness comes from the ancient Pali word, sati, which actually means remembering. So I give lots of reminding instructions to help students gather the mind back into the breath and body. Some classes are quiet and some are rousing! There are many skillful means of learning how to become fully embodied. The point of practice is to cultivate a thread of awareness: to get familiar with being present and to rest in an unbiased mind, no matter what arises inside or outside of us.
What’s on your mind these days yoga-wise?
The more I practice and teach yoga, the more I wonder what I have to offer. And the answer is always the same—offer what is showing up for you. After a tough year with two hip replacement surgeries and a long, difficult recovery I am coming back to life. So I am thinking about sustainability in terms of movement, mindfulness, and impermanence. I’m thinking about working with all parts of ourselves, not throwing things away, gently repairing ourselves with “mendfulness.”
What do you like to do outside of yoga?
Well, you know, I could be a smarty-pants and say, Nothing is outside of yoga. And I would only sort of be kidding. After so many years of studying and practicing yoga and Buddhism, my whole way of living is imprinted with these approaches. But I also really like knitting, sewing, and embroidering portraits and prayer flags. My hubby and I take long walks outdoors every single day, no matter the weather. And I like cooking at home and then eating with a nice glass of wine. Playing with my beagle. I’m writing a new book and that is half fun and half work.