When I was four years old, I asked myself: is life a dream?

There weren’t any Buddhist monks wandering around the Western suburbs of Adelaide in those days, or things might have turned out a bit differently.

That question, though, followed me through acting schools, film sets, meditation halls, and the organised chaos of writers’ rooms. It still does.  

My meditation practice began at Plum Village, France, with Thich Nhat Hanh and the Plum Village community, and continued at Deer Park Monastery in California.

I trained to teach meditation and mindfulness with Julian Daizan Skinner Roshi through Zenways UK, and I continue to practise in the Zen lineage.

I am an emerging Dharma teacher in the Insight tradition through the Insight Meditation Institute Australia, mentored by Subhana Barzaghi.

Alongside this contemplative path, I’ve spent more than two decades in film, theatre, and education.

I’m the co-writer of the feature film One Eyed Girl (winner of the Austin Film Festival Jury Award) and screenwriter of Scarygirl, starring Sam Neill and Anna Torv, which distributed by Viva Pictures in the USA, a dela that was struck even before its screening at Cannes Film Market.

I’ve written for Figaro Pho, was lead Australian  Oh Yuck! and developed projects with studios in Sydney, Milan, and Los Angeles.

I teach screenwriting for John Yorke Story, the UK’s leading story education company and I’m Lecturer, Film Acting at the Elder Conservatorium, Adelaide University.

I also have a fifteen-year background as a theatre director and producer, creating award-winning work in Australia, the UK, and New York.

My background as an actor, director, and filmmaker continues to inform how I teach creative workers contemplative practice.

A Turning Point

I came to meditation because I realised I was depressed.

I loved the work of filmmaking, but its demands and strains had drained the joy and love I had for it, leaving me in the exhaustion that follows success.

I’d been what’s called a book Buddhist — reading Thich Nhat Hanh for years but unable to sit, because every time I did, that same inner perfectionism also berated me for not meditating ‘perfectly’.

After a sell-out series of screenings for the film I’d been part of – cowriter, coproducer, actor – I found myself sitting exhausted at my kitchen table, and I knew I had to do something.

That decision led me to Plum Village in France, where I took an immersive leap into meditation and mindfulness practice with Thich Nhat Hanh and the monastic and lay community.

We all sat and lived with the questions: How can we open up? How can meditation make a difference in our lives? How can we bring more happiness?

On the cushion one morning I felt a huge wave of energy rush straight up through my body and I thought Oh, so this is what they’ve been talking about!

I’ve practiced every day since. And over the last decade, meditation has changed my life.

How I Work Now

I teach a contemplative approach to growing in your creative life. Drawn from Zen and Insight traditions, made for people who make work of all kinds.

Creative practice, for me, is a contemplative practice.

The way art reveals who we are and how we’re striving to connect continues to be a huge inspiration.

Through meditation, inquiry, and creative exploration, we reconnect with the creative self and begin this journey again — with clarity, vision, and vitality.

I work as a contemplative guide, not as a coach or therapist.

Together we look at the stories that shape your life and your work. We unhook your energy from the stories that 

And we rediscover stories that first made you want to do this work at all, the stories that drive you and the quieter, deeper story that keeps drawing you back to what matters most.

You don’t need to learn something new.

You may just need to remember what brought you here: your craft, your path, your practice.

My work now is about helping people find that presence — through meditation, mindful inquiry, and creative exploration. 

hello@craigbehenna.com

If you’re looking for help with a particular creative project and you’d like to know more about my specific development and coaching work in that world, you can read more about that here.