Caroline Sherwood

Caroline Sherwood is a writer and teacher of spiritual life skills, meditation and Tibetan yoga (Kum Nye). She was born in London in 1951 and spent a ‘schizophrenic’ childhood, divided between convent boarding schools and a theatrical home life (her parents were both in the theatre). This, added to the fact that her father (born in 1898) was a ‘late Victorian,’ endowed her with an unusual richness of experience and possibility.

She was one of eight students accepted to read Special Drama at Bristol University in 1969, and graduated with a BA in 1972. Those were turbulent times and Caroline was strongly affected by the swirling of new and ‘Neptunian’ ideas which were lapping at UK shores from the United States; she felt more in tune with ‘going to San Francisco’ and wearing ‘flowers in her hair’ than with the rigours of university academia.

Whilst at Bristol, although loving acting and having some talent for it, her attention turned more towards ‘what makes people tick’ (an enquiry generated directly by her experience of performance) and by the time the course was finished, her focus had moved to psychology, education and the spiritual potential implicit in being human.

This led her, after a year of Reichian Therapy, (and having sampled the smörgåsbord of fare offered by the ‘human potential movement’ – fuelled by the Esalen Institute in California) to meeting a meditation teacher. John Garrie had been an actor, a clown and a charismatic healer (breaking crutches over his knees and restoring speech to the dumb). She became a ‘refugee from therapy’ and took deeper refuge in the profundities of meditation. She trained with John for seven years in Satipatthana-Vipassana (mindfulness-insight), which John presented radically for western students, while remaining utterly faithful to the purity of the Theravadin Buddhist origins of these ancient practices.

This training involved a lot of physical exercise and ‘bodywork’ which led effortlessly to Caroline attending the 3 month training programme in Kum Nye Tibetan yoga at the Nyingma Institute in Berkeley in 1981.

She has explored many methods and paths and studied with a number of outstandingly brilliant teachers, including Sogyal Rinpoche, Ngak’chang Rinpoche, Sun Bear, Barry Long, Edwene Gaines, John de Ruiter and Tareth. Her experience of spiritual practice and teaching spans more than three decades and she is currently writing a memoir.