Hugh Byrne, PhD, is a guiding teacher with the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, DC, and author of The Here-and-Now Habit: How Mindfulness Can Help You Break Unhealthy Habits Once and for All. He has practiced meditation for more than 30 years and has been teaching mindfulness meditation since 2000.

Byrne completed a four-year meditation teacher training program with Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, and other senior Insight Meditation teachers. He is also trained in and teaches Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and completed a three-year training in Somatic Experiencing, a mind-body approach to healing trauma developed by Peter Levine.

With a law degree from London University and a PhD from UCLA, Byrne worked for more than two decades in the field of human rights and social justice. He is cofounder of the Mindfulness Training Institute of Washington and the Mindfulness Teacher Training Institute. He teaches classes and retreats in the Washington, DC, area, nationally, and internationally.