Introduction to Mindful Awareness | Diana Winston - UCLA Health

UCLA Health System - Health Lectures

[nataliaalvim]

I am so grateful for this woman. She has no idea who I am. I was able to overcome panic attacks thanks to mindfulness. I could find a new job and every day I listened to guided meditations recorded by her and Ron Siegel. hearing her voice now makes me remember all the process of heading to bus stop, taking the bus, being seated during 50 minutes (I usually listened to all the meditation on UCLA website), than arriving to my station walking a few blocks towards my job. Thank you, Diana.

[mazzreadstarot]

Regarding the experience of discomfort in bodily sensations during a mindfulness meditation: this is just so important - how many times during the day does your body try to tell you it is hungry or it is tired or it needs to go the bathroom and you either ignore it or even flat out tell it no. Many times this experience of discomfort during mindfulness meditation is you FINALLY are giving attention to your body that it has been begging you for! Mindfulness absolutely increases self care because we open a dialogue with our body messages and tend to these. Pay attention to those body discomfort messages and as you tend to yourself more you can start to experience more pleasurable happy messages from your body.
Nann

[TheRealJavierNovoa]

Marvelous lecture. I would make just one modification. When she addressed the question about planning for the future, she said go ahead and plan for the future and then take a breath and come back into the present. I think it would be better to say, remain present WHILE you are planning for the future. Soon after this question, she addressed the question of thoughts during meditation in a beautiful way. In this way she actually implied the aforementioned.

[yogalove]

SHe truly knows her stuff! How grateful I am to be able to learn under this wonderful teacher! If you ever get a chance to take her class at UCLA Hammer Museum, please do!

[dougwaugh]

I'm retired and now a kids yoga teacher : your teaching approach and knowledge are both excellent !! Loved it
Yogi Doug

[msjustine]

I have a grocery list of real life problems. As I try to deal with my many unavoidable problems, my mind is always in the "what if this happens" mode. I will employ evrything Diana has taught in this video and I believe it will help me to survive! Thank you!

[Counselingtherapyonline]

You might choose Mindfulness Therapy - it is one of the most effective CBT therapies available for overcoming depression and anxiety and for recovery from addictions.

[kevphillips]

Is it your voice on the free UCLA meditation downloads I have been using for the past 6 months? Its great to put a face to the soothing voice . I can explain what a benefit this has been to my life . thank you .

[John]

This is phenomenal. I recently enjoyed a similar book, and it was nothing short of phenomenal. "Mindful Mastery: Living Intentionally in a Chaotic World" by Kyle Ash

[qhzxiif]

very nice to do the mindfulness meditation here in Tamil Nadu, India. gives me more calm and peace.

[bigox]

Praise and blame unmoved, looking at the courtyard's flowers bloom and fall.
Come and go unattached, beholding the sky's clouds roll and unfold.

[francescawills]

I m new to mindfulness. Thank you for this excellent presentation.

[TheQueposfan]

Would not this also be a wonderful part of fighting alcoholism and drug addiction?

[belladionne]

Your meditations have helped me significantly! Thank you xoxo

[junkiego]

is there a way to add captions and translation? i would love to share this with other pple with diff language background.

[patrykrak]

Can I use external thing to focus on? For instance I do not focus on breath but on relaxing music?

[spiritualteachings]

Thank you. I also appreciate mindfulness meditation. 🙏

With my meditation I've personally liked watching a lot of #sriavinashdotv recently.
I find his Satsangs so heartwarming. 💙❤️

[parusha]

I despair to a certain extent - although it is obviously a good thing that mindfulness is better known - it needs to emphasised that it is something that has been stripped out of an entire spiritual tradition - that of Buddhism - and adapted to our secular tastes and mechanistic consciousness. - - I was a Buddhist monk for 15 years and have been teaching contemplative skills for 30 years. I used to do all night sittings and have done many thousands of hours of meditation as a celibate monastic and as a lay person just to back up my statement with some credentials. Mindfulness is only one of 5 spiritual faculties needing cultivation to approach being a fulfilled human being. Yes it does good in its own right taught in this sterile and secular manner - because your better off and somewhat functional with one finger on your hands instead of none - but your still to a large extent crippled and you'd be much better off with 5 fingers . With one functioning finger you will intuitively know something is not right some potential is unfulfilled. While this teacher is backed by all her qualifications she is not in fact qualified to represent the majesty and measure of what the Buddha taught. No doubt she would argue that what is being offered is suited to this secular society and is legitimate - and it is to an extent - but it isn't possible to segregate and teach mindfulness in isolation of the totality the practice inevitably confronts us with. It is not possible to keep something secular that attunes us to the actual fact we are in truth participant in an unbound universe of luminous and oceanic being. Terms such as "presence" and "being in the now" and mechanically pointing attention to resist being in the " the past and future" become facile tropes that mean nothing and if the teacher was honest with themselves they would have to admit they have no idea what the present really is without reducing it to her own familiar terms.


There is a whole psycho physical alchemy that is initiated thorough this practice that is way beyond the wildest imagination of most people including this teachers floundering efforts to describe the present moments nature.


It maybe an inconvenient truth but that is why the linage exists - to wake people up to something they live in ignorance of.


I am sure people feel happy in many ways with this "authoritative" presentation but it is like building a car inside of room. It is being presented as a complete tradition that makes perfect common sense - a strap on of peace to our life as we know it - but you hope to get that without facing the impact of transformation that the practice facilitates in reality. But reality is not escaped or understood and the tradition gets hi jacked in service of our Cartesian locked in syndrome. Presented in this way it will lead you to the oasis and you may feel some relief from your disease but you will soon discover there is no water there to drink.


Mindfulness is death and resurrection - death is going to happen anyway - and that's pretty radical - so this tradition is there to help you die before you die so you so you don't die when you die - so you can accustom yourself to the radical nature of your existence in truth and not perpetuate the sleep walk we are already in as epitomised and reinforced by this mis-representation of the great tradition of awakening.
-
I am even fine with all of that because it has it's place but what I am not OK with is an unconscious power play going on in the shadows - because mindfulness has become an industry and meal ticket - teachers present themselves as the final authorities on the subject and become representatives of a tradition and lineage that they are eviscerating with a watered down representation of what the world actually needs to hear. Legitimate lineage holders are being swamped and silenced in this new flatland where academia trumps lineage and awakening.


Its true but its not right - its right but its not true and there is fake news afoot.



This is coca cola mindfulness - its going to make you sick in the end without the full nourishment the tradition is designed to offer. While we may not like the idea of the sacred messing up your vaguely worked out sense of things - our life happens to be a sacred circumstance in any case - and without realising that in our hearts deepest place suffering is perpetuated and inevitable - believe it or not - it is just so. Mindfulness is at the heart of what is and needs to be more than ever recognised as a mystical tradition - it makes me want to puke when people say there is nothing "mystical" about it. They conflate mystical with mystification at their peril. In fact its our frantic resistance to the bewilderment we feel in the face of this infinite mystery in which we swim that is at the root of ALL suffering. Making such a comment utterly disqualifies her from the lineage. And she is playing with Karmic fire here - this is the spiritual heart and destiny of humans she is fucking with. I will leave it at that there is so much more to be said but this is a start.

[Musington]

Very much enjoyed this.  I fell asleep during the first meditation!  Diana Winston presented this 'lecture' without affectation and with sincerity.  The audience too played a good part. I tweeted the Mark Twain quote.  Thankyou.

[snoo]

i really like the train example for beginners. just dont on the train. we are constantly getting on and off trains and have no idea why we do it.