| Caitriona Reed | |
| Birth Name: | Christopher Reed |
| Birth Place: | Los Angeles, California |
| Occupation: | Public speaker, seminar leader, hypnotherapist, performance coach, meditation and zen teacher |
| Partner: | Michele Benzamin-Miki |
Caitriona Reed (born 1949) is an American sensei of Thiền Zen Buddhism who also has a background in Vipassanā meditation. She co-founded Ordinary Dharma in Los Angeles, California; the rural Manzanita Village Retreat Center, located in San Diego County; and Five Changes, to mentor aspiring leaders, cultural creatives, and spiritual visionaries. Reed, a member of the American Zen Teachers Association, led retreats and workshops in Vipassana, Deep Ecology, and Buddhism 1981–2008. She received authority to teach Zen from Thich Nhat Hanh in 1992.[1]
She is a 'woman of transsexual experience' who transitioned in 1996. She stated about her transitioning, "As a teacher encouraging others to live more honest and authentic lives, it was increasingly difficult for me to deny a basic fact—that I was a woman."[2]
Currently, informed by her work as a Buddhist teacher, Reed focuses on public speaking; mentoring individual clients; and together with her partner Michele Benzamin-Miki conducting professional certification training in neuro-linguistic programming and hypnotherapy with an emphasis holistic approaches to life-coaching and personal and professional mentorship.[3] [4] [5]
Reed is a trans woman, publicly identifying as transgender in April 1998. Although this was the first time she publicly came out, Reed stated close friends had known for around twenty years.[6]
Prior to her transition Reed married her long-time partner (since 1981) artist, Aikido and Iaido Sensei Michele Benzamin-Miki.[6] They continue living and working together.