Chris Crotty

Spiritual Director and Guiding Teacher

Chris serves as one of the Center’s two Spiritual Directors and as Guiding Teacher for the Center. As Guiding Teacher, Chris oversees the functioning of the Center in addition to his role as a teacher.

Chris Crotty, M.A., BCCC, BCPC, is a Buddhist teacher, pastoral counselor, and adjunct professor in wellness and alternative medicine.

Practicing meditation since 1998, he has taken retreats with Burmese monastics Sayadaw U Indaka and Sayadaw U Tejaniya, scholar-practitioner Bhikkhu Analayo, western monastics of the Zen and Thai Forest tradition, and senior western Vipassana teachers. Chris was authorized to teach Buddhadharma in 2015 by senior teachers in the west of Insight (vipassana) tradition, and in 2016 was encouraged to teach vipassana and metta by Sayadaw U Indaka (Chanmyay Myaing, Myanmar). Chris was the guiding teacher at Boston Meditation Center and is an active member of the Center for Spiritual Care & Pastoral Formation (CSCPF), through which he participates in ongoing training in Buddhist Chaplaincy and Pastoral Care.

Chris’s teaching combines Theravada Buddhism’s emphasis on insight and ethics with the Mahayana ideal of compassionate action and synthesis of practice and study. He is particularly interested in exploring the roles of transparency and vulnerability in effectively teaching the dharma and how principles of integrity and kindness form the basis of caring communities. He is also influenced by ecopsychology, attachment theory, and contemplative, pastoral, and palliative approaches to sickness, aging, and end-of-life care.