I created this list of resources during the pandemic to help people deal with the uncertain circumstances, staying at home indefinitely, and the anxiety that comes from all of it.
Anytime is a great time to learn more about mindfulness, how to lessen your anxiety, or just discover the many benefits of living more mindfully, curious and aware of the present moment.
MOBILE APPS
📱 UCLA Mindful’s Free App
FKA the Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC), UCLA’s Mindful program offers free mindfulness meditations. Easy to use, easy to get started!
https://www.uclahealth.org/marc/ucla-mindful-app
📱 Insight Timer – Free App
Free meditation app with all kinds of free meditations, talks, and sleep sounds from teachers all over the world. There’s also a simple prayer bowl timer. https://insighttimer.com/
📱 Plum Village App by Thich Nhat Hanh’s community
“A free app with guided meditations, deep relaxations and other practices offered by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh and his monastic community.” It includes a “bell of mindfulness” features which you can set to go off at set intervals. It’s a really cool feature not available in other apps. https://plumvillage.app/
📱 Calm App
“We’re the #1 app for Sleep, Meditation and Relaxation, with over 50 million downloads and over 700,000 5-star reviews.” https://www.calm.com/
Calm app is free to Kaiser members>
📱 “Ten Percent Happier” YouTube
Ten Percent Happier app and podcast https://www.tenpercent.com/
FREE RESOURCES
🧘🏻♀️ UCLA Mindful
This is the best place to start your meditation practice, in my biased opinion! Easy to use, easy to get started, with basic instructions, which makes sense, since they are based in the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA.
I completed the 10-month Intensive Practice Program here in 2019 and can’t recommend the teachers enough! Diana Winston is the Director of the program and has a really great book for those who might be more interested in learning the science behind meditation, called Fully Present: The Science, Art, and Practice of Mindfulness.
https://www.uclahealth.org/uclamindful
🧘🏻♀️ MARC at UCLA Free Weekly Meditations – Now Online
Weekly mindfulness meditations hosted by MARC at UCLA teachers- 30 minutes of guided and silent meditations and talks, now available virtually via Zoom call.
https://www.uclahealth.org/marc/meditation-at-the-hammer
🧘🏻♀️ Tara Brach’s Resources
From free meditations to weekly live events, and more, Tara Brach is a wonderful mindfulness meditation teacher and psychologist. Brach focuses a lot on self-compassion, which is fundamental to improving your mental health. She has a stellar book called “Radical Compassion” and has made the RAIN technique a popular in meditation practice.
https://www.youtube.com/user/tarabrach
🧘🏻♀️ Oren Jay Sofer
Free and paid resources from Oren Jay Sofer. I’ve taken his Wise Speech online course! He’s currently offering donation based resources, like so many other well-known teachers.
orenjaysofer.com
🧘🏻♀️ Audio Dharma
Free teachings and meditations offered by Insight Meditation Center https://www.audiodharma.org/
🧘🏻♀️ Sounds True: Free Resources
Sounds True Resilience in Challenging Times Mindfulness resources. Sounds True includes teachings by Thich Naht Hanh (read his books!!), Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, and many more teachers that I am more partial to in my personal practice.
https://product.soundstrue.com/resilience-in-challenging-times/
🧘🏻♀️ Spirit Rock Daylong Events, Online Courses, and Retreats
BOOKS
📚 Mindfulness in Plain English
This book was recommended by the teachers at MARC UCLA and is free to read online. It really is a great resource for learning the basics about Vipassana, or Mindfulness by Ven. Henepola Gunaratana.
http://vipassana.com/meditation/mindfulness_in_plain_english.php
📚 Thich Nhat Hanh
“Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh is a global spiritual leader, poet and peace activist, revered around the world for his pioneering teachings on mindfulness, global ethics and peace.” He has written some of my favorite books, which are beautiful, inspiring, and simple in their text, yet so profound in their teachings.
Martin Luther King, Jr. attempted to nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize, which not many people seem to know. I highly recommend any of his books and writings. A great place to start is The Miracle of Mindfulness and Peace is Every Step.
📚 More…
I have a long list of books on mindfulness or living in the present moment- many are by teachers listed above. Oren Jay Sofer, Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Diana Winston, Deborah Eden Tull, Sharon Salzberg, and many more. Several are licensed psychiatrists/psychologists who have blended mindfulness with their teachings.
OTHER RESOURCES
🧘🏻♀️ Lake Shrine Temple, Los Angeles
One of my favorite places to meditate on the Westside (besides the beach early in the morning) is Lake Shrine Temple. I was just told that they have some meditations online. They are not Vipassana, or mindfulness, meditations- they have a different meditation style.
https://lakeshrine.org/lake-shrine-temple/meditation-guidelines/
maile malin 