Catherine Eveillard

Catherine Eveillard was born and raised in Brittany, France. She lived in Quebec from 1974 to 1995; she started on the Shambhala path in Montreal in 1985. During these years she was resident co-director of Shambhala Training together with Seth Levinson. She met with Sakyong Mipham in 1989 and did the Vajradhatu seminary with him in 1992. In 1995 the Sakyong sent her to the newly acquired European Land Center, Dechen Chöling, to be responsible for the renovation of the property and to lay the ground for a public opening. On the very month of arrival, she and her husband, Herbert Elsky, conceived their son, Felix and thereafter they decided to settle nearby as a family. 

She has been a Shambhala teacher since 1998 and a Shastri in 2010. All these years, she has been working with the French sangha, translating texts and programs, encouraging people and creating new groups and new ways to spread the teachings. She is an architect by profession and has had her own office for many years before retiring in 2020. She is now president of the Dechen Chöling Council and devotes her time to the revival of DCL.