About Ethan
“[Ethan is] a supercool, deeply kind brainiac—imagine a very chilled-out blend of Pauls Auster and Rudd—who is also to-the-cushion born.”
–Sally Singer, Vogue.com
Ethan Nichtern is a Buddhist teacher , and is the author of the acclaimed book The Road Home: A Contemporary Exploration of the Buddhist Path (Farrar Straus and Giroux, North Point Press), which was selected as one of Library Journal’s Best Books of 2015, and one of Tech Insider’s “9 Books That Define 2015.” His newest book, Confidence: Holding Your Seat Through Life’s Eight Worldly Winds, will be released June 4, 2024 (New World Library)
His The Road Home podcast launched in 2018 available on iTunes and Stitcher.
He is also the author of The Dharma of The Princess Bride: What The Coolest Fairy Tale of Our Time Can Teach Us About Buddhism and Relationships released by FSG – North Point in 2017. His earlier books are One City: A Declaration of Interdependence (Wisdom Pubs, 2007), and the Novella/poetry collection, Your Emoticons Won’t Save You (Nieto Books, 2012). He founded the Interdependence Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to secular Buddhist practice and transformational activism and arts, and served as executive Director from 2007-2011.
For the past 20+ years, Ethan has taught meditation and Buddhist psychology classes and workshops around New York City and North America and Europe, along with working with students privately. He has primarily studied in the Shambhala and other Tibetan traditions, but has also studied Theravadan and Soto Zen Buddhism. He is also an avid yoga practitioner. He served as Shastri, or Senior Teacher-In-Residence, for the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York, from 2010-2018.
He was formerly on the part-time faculty at Eugene Lang College at New School University and has lectured at Brown, Wesleyan, Yale, NYU, FIT, Antioch and other universities, and as well at many other meditation/yoga centers and conferences around the country and world.
Ethan has been featured on CNN, NPR, ABC/Yahoo News, The New York Times, Vogue.com, Business Insider, Nautilus, and Vice to discuss Buddhism and meditation in the 21st Century. His articles have been featured on The Huffington Post, Beliefnet, Shambhala Sun, Tricycle Magazine, BuddhaDharma Magazine, Reality Sandwich, as well as other online publications.
He is based in Brooklyn, where he lives with his daughter.
