Long Bio

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. When 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 Chodron for the first time, and she refuge with her in 1993. 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 Gampo 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 Sharon sought a path to combine her medical background with her spiritual practices after the loss of a dear friend to suicide. She completed a year-long training to become a chaplain, 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. She began facilitating workshops and study groups focused on Buddhism, meditation, death and dying education, and bereavement support over the past 20 years in various settings. 

She moved to the Midwest in 2009, where she met her husband, Frank. They share a love of the outdoors and a commitment to their individual meditation communities. 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, human development, neurosciences, and emotional intelligence. 

After retirement, Sharon was diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment in 2021. Participating in a number of research studies through the Wisconsin Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Sharon has found profound purpose in 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 to continue her own self-reflection. 

Sharon draws from her extensive experience from her various health care roles, melding decades of meditation practice, and training in emotional resilience to her personal challenge of living with Mild Cognitive Impairment and to her writing. Until My Memory Fails Me: Mindfulness Practices for Cultivating Resilience and Self-Compassion in the Face of Cognitive Decline, is intended to be an affirming guide to enhance a positive approach toward the emotional and spiritual aspects of facing a neurodegenerative disease. She shares, “I believe that having an early diagnosis and interventions for the pre-dementia stage of neurocognitive disease can lead to a better quality of life throughout the course of the disease. My aspiration is that this book will help the many others like me who are facing early diagnosis of a neurocognitive disease.”

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.