Sharon has been living with Mild Cognitive Impairment due to Alzheimer's Disease since her early diagnosis in 2021.
With a background in healthcare, as a Buddhist chaplain and educator, and as a long time meditator and meditation instructor she brings invaluable insights to her experience of living with a neurodegenerative disease. She integrates her extensive experience working with Alzheimer's patients, decades of meditation practice, and training in emotional resilience into her life and her writing.
Sharon Lukert was born on Long Island, New York in the small rural town of East Moriches, near West Hampton. Early on she developed a love for the ocean and the south shore beaches near her home. As a young teen, Sharon pursued dance and poetry as forms of creative expression. At thirteen years old, she was introduced to meditation through a local yoga class.
Sharon moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in her early twenties where she began working in the health care field as a Home Health Aid and Licensed Vocational Nurse while raising her two children, Allison and Kale. In 1989 she met Pema Chödrön for the first time, and took refuge with her in 1993, receiving the Buddhist refuge name of Champa Chödrön. Soon after, she traveled to the monastery, Gampo Abbey, in Nova Scotia for the first of many visits. She had the good fortune to meet many Buddhist teachers through her connection with the Abbey and the Berkeley Shambhala Center. Becoming a meditation instructor was a natural next step in 2001. Later, she acted as the director of Gampo Abbey from 2006-2007. Sharon is currently a member of Dzigar Kongtrul’s sangha, Mangala Shri Bhuti and Pema continues to be a mentor and guide.
In the early 2000’s, after the loss of a dear friend to suicide, Sharon sought a path that would combine her medical background with her spiritual practices. Having decided to become a chaplain, she completed a year-long training that included Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) and a course on death and dying counseling with Frank Ostaseski through the San Francisco Zen Hospice Project. Upon graduation from CPE, Sharon worked as a hospice chaplain for the Santa Rosa Hospice, currently known as Sutter Care at Home. Over the last 20 years she has facilitated numerous workshops and study groups focused on Buddhism, meditation, death and dying education, and bereavement support.
In 2009, she moved to the Midwest where she met her husband, Frank. They share a love of the outdoors and a commitment to their individual meditation practices and communities. Living along the shores of the Mississippi River in Wisconsin, she enjoys hikes on the limestone bluffs, kayaking in the river’s back waters and gardening in her backyard. Sharon returned to CPE in 2011 and began training to become an CPE Associate Educator at Gundersen Hospital in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Her course of study included theology, psychology, human development, neurosciences, and emotional intelligence.
After retirement, Sharon was diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) in 2021. Participating in a number of research studies through the Wisconsin Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Sharon has found a profound sense of purpose by contributing to advancements in understanding the disease. As a life-long learner, Sharon regards her diagnosis as an opportunity to educate others as well as continue her own self-reflection on the process. She draws on her extensive experience in various health care roles, applying decades of meditation practice and training in emotional resilience, to her personal challenge of living with MCI and to her writing.