Feel the space around your body, starting with the back and moving outward, then feeling the space around you, and above and below. Let that ability to feel expand out in all directions. Sense into the space, expanding around your body. Now listen to sounds as far out as you can hear, while also noticing your body in this expanded way. Breathe and soften. Don’t try too hard. Now if you want to, open your eyes and expand your field of vision. So that our body is expanded, our listening is expanded, and our vision is expanded. Rest here in this wide open, spacious awareness like the sky. Vast, expansive, boundless.
Diana Winston
Residential Retreat Teacher
Diana Winston is the Director of UCLA Mindful, the mindfulness education center of UCLA Health. She has taught meditation retreats at Spirit Rock since 2004 has been a pioneer in the field of mindfulness where she has taught and helped seed the establishment of mindfulness into variety of settings including in healthcare, universities, businesses, non-profits, and schools in the US and internationally. She created the evidence-based Mindful Awareness Practices Program (MAPs), is the founding director of UCLA’s Training in Mindfulness Facilitation and is a founding board member of the International Mindfulness Teachers Association.
She is the author of “The Little Book of Being: Practices and Guidance for Uncovering your Natural Awareness”, “Wide Awake: A Buddhist Guide for Teens”, “Glimpses of Being: A Training Course in Expanding Mindful Awareness”, and co-author (with Susan L. Smalley, PhD) of “Fully Present: The Science, Art, and Practice of Mindfulness”. Diana’s meditations have a worldwide reach and are available on the UCLA Mindful, 10 Percent Happier, and Waking Up Apps.
She has practiced vipassana meditation since 1989, including a year as a Buddhist nun in Burma, and each day she tries to be a mindful mom.
Diana Winston's Upcoming Programs
Retreat | On-Land
January 11 - January 18, 2027 | Monday - Monday | 7 nights
Mettā Retreat: Teachings and Practices to Cultivate a Wise, Compassionate, and Resilient Heart
12 CE Credits. Registration Open. This retreat focuses on the cultivation of mettā, or lovingkindness—the development of a heart grounded in goodwill toward oneself and all beings. Through sustained practice, we train the heart in kindness, drawing on mindfulness to recognize and soften patterns that limit the heart. While centered on mettā, we also explore compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity. Held primarily in noble silence, the retreat includes guided meditation, Dharma talks, and meetings with teachers.
Gullu Singh
Donald Rothberg
Diana Winston
Beth Sternlieb
Jonathan Relucio (Movement Teacher)
Ronya Fakhoury Banks (Teacher in Training)
Retreat | On-Land
May 10 - May 15, 2027 | Monday - Saturday | 5 nights
Mindfulness for Everyone: Cultivating Attention, Compassion, and Presence
8 CE Credits. Registration Open. Mindfulness offers us tools to develop our capacity to pay attention, regulate emotions, and cultivate states of lovingkindness, compassion, and even-mindedness. In this retreat, we will practice mindfulness through stillness and movement meditation, as well as through lectures and the opportunity to meet with teachers who will guide our practice. While rooted in the Buddhist practice of mindfulness, this retreat will also focus on the practical applications of mindfulness and the range of ways to practice it.
Family | On-Land
July 28 - August 1, 2027 | Wednesday - Sunday | 4 nights
The Family Retreat - Application 2027
Applications will open on January 20, 2027. Find joy in a retreat for the whole family and take time together to rest, reconnect, play, and enjoy! This four-night residential retreat for adults and children ages 7-15 years old will combine meditation and Dharma teachings, games, arts and crafts, nature time, and more. Kids and teens will have organized time each day to be with peers, fully supervised by our mindful leaders, and adults will also have time to practice, relax, and receive Dharma from the teachers.
Dharma Library
Can't join us live online or on the land? Study and practice at your convenience with Diana Winston through our new library of recordings, articles, and self-paced online courses.