Sylvia Boorstein is a co-founding teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California, where she leads a popular weekly class on Wednesday mornings. She is also a Senior Teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. She lectures nationally on Buddhism and mindfulness; she teaches vipassana and metta meditation. She emphasizes seeing daily life as practice and has a special ability to illustrate how we can be mindful standing in a grocery store checkout line as well as sitting on a meditation cushion.

A practicing psychotherapist since 1967, Boorstein has a Ph.D. in psychology, and has been a presenter at the American Psychiatric Association. Widely respected by her peers, she is often a keynote speaker at Buddhist, interfaith, and meditation conferences.

Sylvia and her husband Seymour, who is a psychiatrist, have two sons, two daughters, and seven grandchildren. They live in Sonoma County, California.