Diana Winston

Director of Mindfulness Education at UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center

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Key Concepts

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Chapter 5 — what is meditation?

Meditation — any practice that cultivates inward investigation

Analogy: it’s like the general term ‘sports’ with many categories of sports and variations

Awareness, concentration, prayer, healing and many other types of meditation practices

The focus of this book is awareness practices

Practice — to actively and deliberately work to cultivate a skill

Can be confusing since often shorthand for meditation

Example: ‘glimpse practices’ — short moments of meditation practices

Meditation:

Drop the question into your mind — is it ok to be aware of just this?

Chapter 6 — what about regular old mindfulness practice?

Helpful but not the full picture of what’s possible

Way to distinguish classic mindfulness practices with natural awareness

Mindfulness — paying attention to present moment experiences with curiosity and willingness to be with what is

Can be brought to any moment throughout the day

Example: placing your attention on an object of awareness like your breath

Informally mindfulness by paying attention to present moment sensations or breath

Many students find it helpful to start with classical mindfulness meditation prior to natural awareness

Chapter 7 — the spectrum of awareness

Exercise: look out the window, focus on a single car, then focus on the scene overall, then

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