Mercedes Bahleda is a yogini and artist originally from New York City. Born and raised Roman Catholic, Mercedes was taken under the care of Dominican Sisters at the age of fourteen when she entered Mount Saint Mary's Convent Academy for Girls. Under their care, she was inspired to study voice, perform in chamber choir, and was introduced to silent retreat, chanting and various forms of Christian meditation.
Now a Buddhist, Mercedes has traveled extensively in the last ten years to research both Eastern and Western forms of meditation, classical music, and philosophy at the great monasteries and schools of Ladakh and India. A professional singer from New York City, she is now dedicated to helping others to radically transform their hearts and minds through wisdom and meditation.
Mercedes is a certified yoga instructor in the Hatha/Ashtanga system of Yoga and has completed seven teacher trainings in Tibetan Heart Yoga Asanas and eight teacher trainings in the Yoga Sutras and Hatha Yoga Pradipika scriptures. She incorporates her love of music, story telling and ten years of Buddhist studies with Geshe Michael Roach and Lama Christie McNally into her fun-packed classes.
An honors graduate of New York University, she has served on the teaching staff at New York University and currently leads classes in Devotional Music, Tibetan Heart Yoga, Tibetan Language and Meditation at Diamond Mountain University. Mercedes is also the director of Star in the East (starintheeast.org) meditation group.
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