Bonni Ross

Bonni Ross has spent over fifty years in committed engagement with Buddhadharma. She is a deeply respected guiding Elder and senior teacher at the Wangapeka Study and Retreat Centre where she has led retreats for more than thirty years. Living locally since 2017, Bonni has been crucial in supporting the continuing vibrancy and health of the Wangapeka Centre community.

Bonni communicates the dharma creatively, directly and with humour; a tried and tested method for waking up in the lives we find ourselves inhabiting right now. She teaches with precision and clarity, drawing on a breadth of life experience including family life and full time work. Her experiences in the work force range from co-creating Kia Zan (from the I Ching, meaning ‘household’ or ‘family’) an innovative, non-hierarchical program for youth experiencing fallout from drug use in Winnipeg, Manitoba in the early 1970’s, to more than five years developing a future-based planning group within Management Board of Cabinet for the government of Ontario to being Associate Producer of a weekly show made for the CBC in the early 1990’s.

Born in Vancouver in 1947, it was as a deeply curious struggling seventeen year old that Bonni encountered the Zen teacher Alan Watts, the great Japanese teacher Suzuki Roshi and the founder of Gestalt therapy, Fritz Perls.

In Toronto in 1975, she was fortunate to meet students of Venerable Namgyal Rinpoche, and travelled to meet him for a course he was teaching in Norway the following year. This experience catalysed profound certainty and a lifelong commitment to the path of awakening. Some years later, as a young mother in her early 30’s she had the opportunity to serve His Holiness the 16th Karmapa, who instructed her to begin teaching and to be ‘a bridge’. He also advised her ‘to be guided by Namgyal Rinpoche in all things.’

Bonni witnessed Wisdom teachings and meditative practices becoming more accessible in the West. Many great Tibetan masters and also innovative Westerners such as Buckminster Fuller have had a direct influence on her life, as well as scientists, composers, poets, artists, dancers and mystery writers. From this depth of experience flows dynamic lively teachings that are accessible, practical and remain relevant and transformative for those willing to put them to the test of practice.

Bonni has served as resident teacher at the Dharma Centre of Canada, and for a time taught regularly in Bali, Australia, the United States and Ireland as well as visiting New Zealand consistently since 1995.

Acting as a catalyst for conscious development of spiritual community has been a constant thread in Bonni’s adult life. She and her partner Matthew Eades founded Sunshine Coast Retreat House in British Columbia, Canada in 2002. Many people attended retreats and courses there over fourteen years and it was an environment in which practical ways to sustain healthy community were explored, modelled and refined.

In 2012 she and Matthew accepted an invitation to spend six months of each year in Aotearoa. She led an eclectic programme of workshops, public classes, study groups and retreats before returning to run a similar programme back in Canada with students there. The active dharma community connected to the Wangapeka today blossomed from this offering and in 2017 Bonni and Matthew moved permanently to Nelson.

Bonni is one of the founders of the dharmasphere collective and one of the visionaries behind the innovative project 2020 A Year of Clear Vision. She and Matthew regularly spend time in retreat at Vast Expanse Hermitage at Wangapeka.

Bonni recently wrote

“ My teachers have met my longing for liberation by lavishly sharing lineage, systems, methods, concepts and opportunities to study and practice. Paradoxically, the potency of that blessing grows stronger as the body wanes in capacity. In whatever time remains, I welcome sincere practitioners, of any age and stage, to request work they need to enhance the requirements of the Path.”

July 2026