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.
Diana and Donald each speak for about 20 minutes. Diana focuses especially on relational metta practice in daily life, including with parenting. Donald speaks of the aspiration, as the great Tibetan teacher Shabkar, emphasizes, on having one’s life and practice be one. He then focuses on the different dimensions of individual metta practice in daily life. The two talks are followed by a period of discussion.
This guided session explores multiple ways to send metta to self: From a benefactor, through our body, to different times in our life, and to aspects of ourselves.
In this talk we explore the roots of self-judgment, and the ways in which mindfulness, loving kindness, and the recognition of our shared humanity and inner goodness can work together to alleviate the critical mind. This talk was given at a metta retreat so it pays particular attention to using metta to heal the inner critic when obstacles arise .
This short talk and guided practice introduces us to "dry metta", the metta practice which is focused on intention building and changing our inner narrative. It invites us to repeat simple phrases without any intention or need to feel the quality of metta. It's a lovely simple way to practice that takes the pressure off metta!
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.
Sex is an incredibly important topic for many people, but is rarely talked about in the insight meditation lineage. This talk first explores the Theravadin Buddhist teachings on sex as they relate to monastics and lay people and then offers tools for bringing our dharma practice to sexual activity. We start with the “don'ts”, looking back at the canonical teachings on sex, and investigate the third precept— refraining from sexual misconduct—as a foundational for integrity in sexual activity. We then move to the “do’s”: how in these times might the dharma teachings offer wisdom to the realm of sex? The key— mindfulness for embodiment, self-awareness, communication, and presence.
What is Natural Awareness? This talk gives context for accessing and playing with a type of mindfulness that is open, spacious, luminous, and boundless. Natural awareness connects us to "awareness of awareness." The talk begins with an explanation of the spectrum of awareness (using some entertaining props) and includes on the spot glimpse practices.
This short meditation describes how we use RAIN to work with our emotions. RAIN includes: Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture, and Not Identify with. We also practice with RAIN on the spot, working with any difficult emotion that is present.
