Beth has been involved with InsightLA from the start and seeing our community grow from an idea into a reality has awakened in her a deeper appreciation for what an unexpected transformation mindfulness and commitment can bring into our lives. As a member of InsightLA’s teacher council, she explores ways of bringing mindfulness and metta practice to our community in creative and innovative ways.
While as director of the Buddhist studies program, she shares her interest in how ancient wisdom can support us through our everyday life struggles. She also teaches MBSR, where she is excited to observe how each new group of students learns through their own experience to embrace the present moment. Beth began her meditation practice years ago at Ordinary Dharma with Catriona Reed in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh.
Inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings on compassion and inter-being and his profound capacity for forgiveness, Beth began her regular practice which now consists of long retreats with Joseph Goldstein at IMS and Jack Kornfield at Spirit Rock. She is a member of the IMS/Spirit Rock Dedicated Practitioners’ program for teachers.
Beth has been co-investigator on several research intervention studies at UCLA that looked at the impact of Iyengar yoga on breast cancer survivors with persistent fatigue and young adults suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome, and depression. She began studying yoga when she sought help for a serious medical condition from Manouso Manos, a San Francisco-based senior teacher in Iyengar yoga therapeutics. She assisted Manouso for several years in his therapeutic classes and traveled to India to assist in the medical classes taught by BKS and Geeta Iyengar at the Ramamani Iyengar institute in Pune.
Having experienced the healing benefit of Iyengar yoga firsthand – and eager to help others suffering from pain – she became a member of the UCLA Pediatric Pain Program clinical team and Whole Child LA, where she continues to teach mindfulness and yoga to children and young adults with chronic pain and health problems in an integrative medical setting.
Events with Beth Sternlieb
July 10 - 13, 2025
This in-person retreat is open to both beginners and experienced practitioners. The Buddha often spoke of life in this world as an uneven path that constantly challenges us to walk evenly. This seems as true as ever 2,600 years later in a world that is fraught with multiple trials, including climate change, divisive public discourse, the epidemic of gun violence, and even the comparatively mundane challenges of work-life balance. The storms affect us deeply on multiple levels of our being. In this meditation retreat we’ll practice with an attitude, approach and meditative techniques which encourage the mind, the body, the…
September 16 - 21, 2025
This in-person retreat is open to both beginning and experienced practitioners. We often long for love, both giving and receiving, but the busyness of life and the agitation of our minds do not create the conditions for love to arise. In dharma practice, we find love naturally arises when we rest deeply. When we let go of the dissatisfaction of endless grasping, we experience loving awareness itself. As we do this, we discover what’s been waiting there all along, a softening of the heart, a truly satisfying love. The daily rhythm of a retreat usually involves alternating periods of stationary…