Dheeresh was brought up in the Roman Catholic faith; becoming disillusioned with it, age 16, he had a conversation with his mother, Diana Turnbull, who said, “I think at the bottom, all religions are the same, but you should read about some of the others so you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
So began a quest that led him to a Religious Studies degree at Lancaster University, where he started samatha ('calm') meditation with the university Buddhist society. But his first year summer vacation took him to India (with his first wife Vibha), where he became a sannyasin with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho). As well as turning him completely upside down, this introduced him to the idea that meditation and therapy could be complementary. This has greatly influenced his life's work.
He left the Rajneesh movement in 1981, and went to Oxford to study Indian religions. There he started the practice of aikido. The teacher, Kanetsuka Sensei, said, “If you want to be good at aikido, you must have strong tanden [the energy centre in the lower belly]. To have strong tanden, you must sit zazen. My house Tuesday mornings!”
He is still sitting zazen! Moving to London, Dheeresh joined a group connected to Genpo Roshi (then Sensei), and received jukai (receiving the precepts) from him in 1988, did Big Mind training with him in 2006 and received shukke tokudo (monk ordination) from him in 2010, in Ameland.
After briefly working as a schoolteacher, Dheeresh started a career in mental health in 1990 with Oxford Mind, and qualified as a cognitive behavioural therapist in 1998. He still has a small private practice. In 1999 he co-facilitated the first Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course that was open to the general public in the UK, and has been running mindfulness programmes on and off ever since.
In 1996 he trained intensively with a tai chi and chi gong master Mao Shih An, who authorised him to teach a particular chi gong set. He has continued this to the present day. Currently he is learning 'flow tai chi'.
From 2011–2012 he did a shamanic training, the Medicine Wheel, with the Shuh Shuh Guh. It is still working…
Dheeresh has written two books: The CBT-Pot (2013); The Mindfulness Handbook (2014) and is currently completing a third, Getting to Zen.
In 2012, looking for a more local Zen teacher, he discovered the Wild Goose Zen Sangha, and developed a warm relationship with Patrick Kundo Roshi, who greatly surprised him by asking if he wanted to train as a Zen teacher. Later he switched to Jeremy Ryokan Sensei, who gave him Dharma transmission in 2020. He has now followed Ryokan Sensei into Stonewater, and is very happy about that. He set up and is supported by the local group in Brighton & Hove.
Dheeresh has been married to Lin for over thirty years (Genpo Roshi facilitated the ceremony), and they have children, grandchildren and a cat.