Matthew Brensilver, PhD, offers retreats at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and the Insight Retreat Center. For more than a decade, he taught for Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society.
He continues to teach at UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center about the intersections between mindfulness and mental health. He spent years doing research on addiction treatment at the UCLA Center for Behavioral and Addiction Medicine and continues to be interested in the unfolding dialogue between dharma and science.
Events with Matthew Brensilver
Ethics and Love in Interpersonal Life [On Land]April 16 - 20, 2025
A dharma program with Matthew Brensilver, open to both beginners and experienced practitioners. *5-day Retreat (in-person & online) + 6 week course* We live in a web of mutuality; the interpersonal realm is where the rubber meets the road in our spiritual practice. Our relationships – personal and professional – act like a magnet, pulling both our goodness and our pain to the surface. How can we draw on dharma principles and practices to enrich our interpersonal lives? How can others serve as mirror for our inquiry into ourselves? The Buddhist tradition provides ethical guidance: lives founded on goodness, sensitivity…
Ethics and Love in Interpersonal Life [Online]April 16 - 20, 2025
A dharma program with Matthew Brensilver, open to both beginners and experienced practitioners. *5-day Retreat (in-person & online) + 6 week course* We live in a web of mutuality; the interpersonal realm is where the rubber meets the road in our spiritual practice. Our relationships – personal and professional – act like a magnet, pulling both our goodness and our pain to the surface. How can we draw on dharma principles and practices to enrich our interpersonal lives? How can others serve as mirror for our inquiry into ourselves? The Buddhist tradition provides ethical guidance: lives founded on goodness, sensitivity…
Six Week Program: Ethics and Love in Interpersonal Life [Online]April 24 - May 29, 2025
A Six Week Integration dharma program with Matthew Brensilver *available for all those that attend the in person and online April retreat* Please ensure you are registered for the April 16-20, 2025 retreat first, this program is only available for those attending the retreat. In-person and Online options available. Dates for the program are as follows: In-person and Online Retreat: (must attend all dates) April 16th – 20th, 2025 Online Integration Sessions via Zoom: (please plan to attend all sessions) April 24th: 7pm – 8pm PT May 1st: 7pm – 8pm PT May 8th: 7pm – 8pm PT May 15th:…
Love and RestSeptember 16 - 21, 2025
Open to both beginning and experienced practitioners. Registration for this retreat closes on September 2nd, 2025 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. If looking to join after this date, please inquire at guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org 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…