Esther Freinkel Tishman is a Zen teacher, academic, tarot expert, interfaith chaplain, and mindfulness instructor. As a scholar of archetype and religion, Esther has published extensively on poetry, philosophy, and mysticism (under the names Lisa Freinkel and Lisa Freinkel Tishman.) In 2020, her book Mindful Tarot was nominated by the International Tarot Foundation for best tarot book of the year. Shakespeare Bulletin has characterized her writing as “engaging, provocative, impressively learned.”
Esther’s teaching experience spans a variety of learning and experiential contexts. She is a certified mindfulness instructor, trained at UMass Memorial Medical Center, and founder of mindfulness programs at the University of Oregon and at PeaceHealth medical centers, where she is a board-certified interfaith chaplain.
In her role as dharma teacher at Buddha Eye Zen Community Temple (Eugene, Oregon) Esther has served as a retreat leader since 2016. For more than a decade, as a performance-oriented, award-winning Shakespeare professor, she led weeklong workshops in the retreat-like setting of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Since 2019 she has led in-person and online workshops based on her Mindful Tarot method.