My work since 2006 through UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center (uclahealth.org/marc) emphasizes making mindfulness teachings accessible to all, regardless of background, yet without losing depth practice. In recent years I have been teaching on Natural Awareness— the effortless, objectless, and spacious side of awareness practices. Socially engaged Buddhism is a thread woven through many of my talks-- how can we end suffering both internally and externally? Having worked with teens and young adults for many years, some of the talks are geared to young people. Finally as a mom of a tween, I'm deeply inspired by the transformative power of daily life and family practice.
This talk explores the way wisdom develops and focuses on the three characteristics of impermanence, suffering, and not self. It touches on not clinging, dropping bananas, two arrows, and how love fits into it all.
This foundational talk on mindfulness offers insight into why and how to practice mindfulness, what makes meditation difficult, the qualities of a mindful mind, and the fruits of the practice.
In this session we explore the 4 components of Self-Compassion: mindfulness, kindness, shared humanity, and recognition of our inner goodness. Then we practice Self-Directed Loving Kindness.
This talk, given on the opening night of a retreat for beginners, explores what mindfulness is, some science behind it, helpful attitudes for retreat, including patience and kindness, and ways of supporting yourself on retreat.
Given at the Spirit Rock Family Retreat, this talk addresses the importance of love in a world filled with hatred. We explore how choosing love over hate directly relates to our parenting as well as to the larger suffering in the world. Some of the points include: hatred hurts, love feels great; hatred is uncurious, love seeks to understand; hatred clouds the mind, love brings wisdom. A helpful talk for any of us struggling to bring our practice to these current times.
This talk explores what natural awareness is– the open spacious, luminous end of the spectrum of awareness. In particular we cover how natural awareness is connected to letting go and how we can experience waking up/nibbana for everyone
