I found Shiunzen Young (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinzen_Young http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinzen_Young) to be a very good instructor. I've been to two of

I found Shiunzen Young (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinzen_Young http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinzen_Young) to be a very good instructor. I've been to two of his retreats, and he does a great job of putting technical Buddhist terminology into Western terms. He used to teach Math and Religious studies at a J.C/University in Southern California, so he has a very approachable "western-academic" style. A good source for Buddhist teachings is the KPFK archives (http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/ http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/). Search for "Something's Hapenning". Thursday Night is the night they usually play meditation and spiritual stuff. Be warned: some of it is really good, but a lot of it is extremely hokey. Also, Sounds True (http://www.soundstrue.com/ http://www.soundstrue.com/) has some really good teachers (as well a a few charlatans, too).