Teacher Profiles

Emma Pittaway

Emma Pittaway teaches an open “natural awareness” approach that emphasises meditation as a way of being in the world, based on her training in the Burmese lineage of Mahāsī Sayādaw via Shwe Oo Min Sayādaw and his dharma successor, Sayādaw U Tejaniya. Inspired by the Buddha and his followers, who lived and meditated in the forest, she draws on the natural world to support her practice. She is the principal insight teacher at the Kuan Yin Meditation Centre in Lismore, NSW.

Events with Emma Pittaway

Remembering Awareness - Nine-day retreat
November 6 - 15, 2026

Our practice is based on mindfulness, which emerges from the continuity of awareness. How can we maintain continuous awareness? By remembering that we are already aware. We do not need to generate awareness. When we “try” to be aware, our effort is based on our desire to be someone different, to have something different. But if awareness is already available, then what is there to try for? When we stop trying and allow ourselves to recognise what is already here, the continuity of awareness naturally emerges.