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 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!”
Dheeresh is still sitting zazen! Moving to London, he joined a group connected to Genpo Roshi (then Sensei), and received jukai (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, qualified as a cognitive behavioural therapist in 1998 and practiced for over twenty years. In 1999 he co-facilitated the first Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course that was open to the general public in the UK, and ran mindfulness programmes on and off until 2025 when he retired from both CBT and mindfulness teaching.
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' and Shuang Yang.
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 (shiho) in 2020. He has now followed Ryokan Sensei into Stonewater, and is very happy about that. In February 2026 he received denkai from Ryokan Sensei, putting together being a Zen priest and teacher. He set up and is supported by our local group in Brighton & Hove.
In 2021 he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and had his prostate removed. However, the prostate cancer came back in 2025 (read his reflection, Cancer, Aikido, Big Mind, and Zen), accompanied by two kinds of bladder cancer. All of them are currently under control with a mixture of hormone treatment, chemotherapy and immunotherapy. Of course we do not know how long this will go on working, so as they say in the sales ‘buy now while stocks last’ - i.e. he encourages people to make use of him while they can.
Dheeresh has been married to Lin for over thirty years (Genpo Roshi facilitated the ceremony), and they have children, grandchildren and a cat, Herby (his other teacher).