Richard Mahler has taught various classes, workshops, and community seminar since 1976, when he oversaw radio journalism courses while earning a
Journalism and Mass Communications master's degree at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison (1975-78). He has delivered writing, media, and
public relations lectures and/or taught for-credit courses at Loyola Marymount
University (Los Angeles), Long Beach City College, Santa Fe Community College, the University of Southern California, University of New Mexico, St. John's College (Santa Fe),
and other institutions. He has written extensively about mindfulness for various print and on-line publications, including Inquiring Mind magazine and eMindful.com.
Richard has practiced yoga (primarily Iyengar) since 1997 and meditation (primarily Vipassana) since 1989. In 2000, he received seven days of residential professional training
at New York's Omega Institute as a facilitator in Mindfuless-Based Stress Reduction from MBSR
originator Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn and executive director Saki Santorelli of the University of Massachusetts
Medical School's Stress Reduction Clinic.
Richard has facilitated MBSR
in hospitals, community centers, prisons, and privately, using non-religious techniques that draw on the ancient traditions
of insight meditation, guided imagery, and hatha yoga (as described in the 1994 PBS-TV documentary hosted by
Bill Moyers, Healing and the Mind). Northern California facilities where Richard has taught stress reduction include Santa Cruz's Dominican Hospital and Kaiser Permanente's hospitals in San Francisco and San Rafael, as well as the Los Gatos Community Center and trainings of the William James Association for artists and writers working with inmates in prisons. He has also organized and co-led California and New Mexico retreats that focus on breath-centered Vipassana (Insight) meditation. Richard works on a free-lance basis and welcomes invitations to facilitate and counsel others in MBSR, stress reduction, pain management, or meditation.
Learn more about Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction at the University of Massachusetts Medical School Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society and the health-related benefits of meditation at WildMind.org.
"Rarely do we question and then contemplate with determination what our hearts are calling us to do and to be. I like to frame such efforts in question form: 'What is my job on the panet with a capital J?' or 'What do I care about so much that I would pay to do it?'"