Jenny Jennings Foerst, PhD

In 1982, at age 19, Jenny began studying Eastern philosophy and doctrine. In the late 1990s, she authored a 400-page doctoral dissertation comparing Zen koan aporias to the deconstructive rhetoric of silence in modernist American texts—an East-West interface that still informs her teaching and writings today.

In 2010 Jenny began formal Buddhist meditation practice in the traditional local Gelug center. After switching to Theravadin practices in late 2013, Stream Entry quickly followed in August 2014.

From August 2014 to late summer 2015, Jenny received ongoing personal guidance from Dr. Daniel M. Ingram, marking the year of her fastest profound openings.

In July 2015, Mahamudra Fourth Yoga stabilized under the instruction of her teacher from 2015 onward, Dr. John Churchill, who studied and taught for 15 years under Dr. Daniel P. Brown, late author, translator, and founder of the Pointing Out Way teaching organization.

With Dr. Churchill’s instruction and encouragement, Jenny began refining her gains with Bon Dzogchen practices and began writing a comprehensive practice manual, The Critical Path to Awakening: Model, Map, and Method for Contemporary Buddhist Meditation Practice.

In 2017, after reaching Dzogchen realization, Jenny founded Axis Mundi Awakening to offer an intensive whole-path Buddhist awakening program to select, highly motivated students earnestly seeking truth, goodness, and sustainable happiness.