Ronya Banks (she/her) is the founding teacher of Asheville Insight Meditation group, in Asheville, NC, which she has led since 2010.  She has maintained a daily Vipassana meditation practice since 1985, spent two years sitting on Vipassana meditation retreats, as well as having had valuable experience as a Theravada Buddhist nun. In addition to being a retreat teacher, she is presently in the joint IMS/Spirit Rock teachers training program, a graduate of the Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader program, and served eight years as a mentor for Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach’s Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program.  Although she has sat with over 30 different teachers, she considers Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, and Chanmyay Sayadaw her primary teachers.  Ronya has led and co-led several residential and online meditation retreats since 2014.  

As a social worker, Ronya works as a “Embodied Presence” therapist, with an emphasis on healing trauma and transforming conditioned patterns to support one’s spiritual life journey.  Born in Kuwait of Palestinian-American descent and raised in Islamic faith, Ronya values justice and equality for all. Her teaching style is characterized by her authentic, easy-going personality, helping people synthesize complex topics into digestible pieces.  Her greatest joy has been as a parent and grandparent.