Practice for Everyday Life
What continues to amaze me after 30 years of meditation practice is how much we can continue to grow in awareness, wisdom, kindness, and freedom. I'm moved by both the depth of what we can discover in contemplative practice and the ways those discoveries can change how we live and engage with the world.
One of the greatest gifts of Dharma practice in my own life has been how much it has helped in my relationships with my wife, children, grandchildren, and friends, as well as in my professional life. Jack Kornfield often reminds us that when we look back on our lives, one of the things that matter most is whether we’ve loved well. His words have inspired me for years, and my own experience has shown me how Dharma practice can help us love more fully. This is a work in progress for me and continues to inspire my practice and teaching.
I'm very interested in the relationship between awareness and love, and how these qualities can deepen and support one another. For me, the fruits of practice are not only found in moments of stillness or insight, but in how we meet life's difficulties, care for one another, and respond when something needs to be done. I love the possibility that greater awareness and inner freedom can give rise to courage and strength in the service of love and the well-being of others. Engaging wholeheartedly with life's challenges then becomes a wonderful part of the practice.
My meditation practice and study have focused primarily on the Insight and Mahamudra traditions. In 2017, I completed Spirit Rock Meditation Center's two-and-a-half-year Community Dharma Leaders (CDL) training program, where I received guidance on how to lead Dharma practices from Bhikkhu Bodhi, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Sylvia Boorstein, Tara Brach, Gil Fronsdal, Joanna Macy, and others. I currently co-lead a Spirit Rock-affiliated weekly mindfulness sitting group at White Heron Sangha in San Luis Obispo, California.
I'm a retired physician and a certified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) instructor, trained through the University of California, San Diego. I teach MBSR courses in the San Luis Obispo area. I also completed the Mindful Practice Facilitator Training program at the University of Rochester with physician and mindfulness teacher Ronald Epstein. These trainings, together with my background in medicine, have helped me bring mindfulness practice to healthcare professionals. As an instructor with the UCSF Center for Mindfulness in Surgery, I lead courses for physicians and other healthcare professionals at academic medical centers across the country, both in person and virtually.