Core Group

Brian is an avid practitioner of mental wellness and engages with communal growth, intimacy, and empowerment through the teachings of the Buddha.

Penda Mbaye Z. Smith is a writer and educator living in New Orleans. She loves hot yoga, rollerskating, and watching sunsets over the Mississippi River. She also loves her cat Prudence. 

Maazy is a multidisciplinary artist and youth advocate whose work includes photography, videography, graphic design, poetry, singing, and dancing. Passionate about service, philosophical dialogue, and community transformation, Maazy offers creative and spiritual support within and beyond the Sangha. Since 2010, they’ve made New Orleans home and have ive writing, Katie supports the Sangha through organizational care, ritual, and the written word.

Upekkha, whose name means “equanimity” or “non-discrimination,” is Sangha House NOLA’s beloved temple cat and dharma companion. She has been a steadfast presence since the launch of the Great Aspiration, accompanying Venerable Dayananda across the country during the three-year mobile monastic pilgrimage.

A lover of nature, treats, and greeting everyone who enters the temple, Upekkha embodies the practice her name honors: moving through the world with acceptance, curiosity, and equanimity. She reminds us that all beings belong in sacred space and that hospitality can take many forms.

In her quiet (and sometimes not so quiet) way, Upekkha teaches the Sangha about patience, presence, and the joy of welcoming each moment and each visitor with an open heart.

Tsehai Askari is an educator, community organizer, and ordained interreligious minister committed to cultivating belonging and transformation. As the Dean of Student Culture at Morris Jeff Community School, she leads restorative and trauma-informed practices that foster equity and engagement. At Sangha House NOLA, she brings these same principles to her spiritual leadership, supporting mindfulness, healing, and collective liberation. Her offerings draw from a rich blend of spiritual lineages, creating interfaith spaces rooted in joy, resilience, and embodied care.

Jay is a queer, nonbinary storyteller, educator, and multidisciplinary artist from New Orleans whose work bridges ancestral wisdom, dharmic principles, and digital media. With over a decade of experience in design, project management, and youth arts education, Jay creates spaces for communities to explore identity, heal generational trauma, and cultivate liberation through storytelling and genealogy. A devoted Aborisha and practitioner in both Mahāyāna and Theravāda Buddhist lineages, they integrate Buddhist practice with creative expression to facilitate youth-led projects, retreats, and workshops that honor the past while inspiring collective healing.

Katie Wills Evans is a poet, writer, and educator with fourteen years of experience across schools, jails, universities, and collective learning spaces. Rooted in abolitionist and Buddhist practice, she offers deep skills in pedagogy, facilitation, communications, and collective culture-building. Based in New Orleans and currently pursuing an MFA in creative writing, Katie supports the Sangha through organizational care, ritual, and the written word.

Corey is a health consultant and ordained Lama in the Nyingma lineage of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism. A lifelong student of Traditional Chinese Energy Medicine, his work integrates Bon, Daoist, and Buddhist mysticism to support holistic transformation. After overcoming serious health challenges, Corey now offers health consulting, guided meditation, breathwork, and educational workshops, helping others align mind, body, and spirit on their journey toward wellness and liberation.

Nashé Renee, The Melodic Herbalist, is a cultural worker and healing arts practitioner whose offerings integrate ancestral wisdom, somatic practice, sound healing, and earth-based traditions. Through medicine-making, writing, and workshops, she invites others into deeper relationships with body, lineage, and land. Her work uplifts collective healing and liberation through Earth-centered and Black ancestral practices rooted in care and restoration.