Silent Retreat: Mindfulness for Everyone: Cultivating Attention, Compassion, and Presence

Silent Retreat: Mindfulness for Everyone is a silent meditation retreat led by Diana Winston at Spirit Rock in Keshena, Wisconsin. It is a mindfulness retreat built around three qualities named in its title: attention, compassion, and presence. Diana's retreats and classes are described as accessible to the general public, and this one is offered in that spirit, for people who want to practice mindfulness in sustained silence, whether they are newer to meditation or returning to it.

What to Expect

The retreat is held in silence, which gives the practice room to deepen. The teachings follow the three themes of the title. Attention is the foundation, learning to notice where the mind is and to steady it. Compassion is cultivated alongside it, so that awareness meets experience with kindness rather than judgment. Presence is what grows from the two together.

Diana also teaches a movement from focused awareness toward a more spacious, open awareness, and that is the kind of guidance her students come to her for. The retreat is offered with 8 continuing education credits for those who need them.

About Diana Winston

Diana Winston is the director of UCLA Mindful, the mindfulness education center of UCLA Health, and the author of The Little Book of Being: Practices and Guidance for Uncovering Your Natural Awareness. She has practiced mindfulness meditation since 1989, including a year as a Buddhist nun in Burma, and has taught since 1993 in hospitals, universities, corporations, nonprofits, and schools in the United States and Asia. The Los Angeles Times called her "one of the nation's best-known teachers of mindfulness."

For 17 years she worked at UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center, where she developed the evidence-based Mindful Awareness Practices (MAPS) curriculum and the Training in Mindfulness Facilitation program, which trained more than 500 mindfulness teachers worldwide. She is a founding board member of the International Mindfulness Teachers Association.

Beyond retreats, Diana leads a weekly guided meditation at the Hammer Museum near the UCLA campus in Los Angeles and a free weekly online mindfulness class, so many participants already know her teaching before they sit a retreat with her.

The Setting

The retreat takes place at Spirit Rock, in Keshena, Wisconsin.

Before You Go

The retreat is presented as mindfulness for everyone, so no prior retreat experience is required. Those who want continuing education credit can earn 8 CE credits by attending.