Lisa Dale Miller, LMFT, LPCC, SEP, is a private practice psychotherapist in Los Gatos, CA. She specializes in mindfulness psychotherapy and Somatic Experiencing therapy for the treatment of depression, anxiety, addiction, trauma, emotional dysregulation, chronic pain, and relationship stress. Lisa is an outpatient clinician for the Veterans Administration San Jose and a teacher of Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) for addiction, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) for depression relapse prevention, and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). Lisa also presents at conferences and trains clinicians in the clinical applications of Buddhist psychology. She has been a yogic and Buddhist meditation practitioner for four decades.
The Buddha explained in the First Noble Truth how the inherent unsatisfactoriness of human existence gives rise to all forms of human suffering. True understanding of this teaching liberates habitual tendencies to harm oneself, others and our world.
No one wants to suffer, and yet stress is everywhere in our lives. After the Buddha awakened under the Bodhi Tree, the first thing he talked about was how to find true happiness.
He described four wise ways you can work with your mind in the midst of ordinary and meditative experiences, popularly known as the Four Noble Truths. You can (1) comprehend your suffering; (2) abandon its causes; (3) realize that it is possible to end suffering; and (4) follow the path that leads to its end. Practicing this path, you will become free—not by avoiding what is unwanted, but by developing a wise relationship to your mind and all the myriad conditions by which it manufactures stress.
Lisa Dale Miller gave the third talk in a speaker series titled "Living Wisely in the World: Caring for Mind, Family, Society, and Planet." She explained that though the Buddhist notion of emptiness can be quite challenging for Western Buddhist practitioners, the rich teachings on emptiness offer a clear path to apply wise view, wise action and skillful means in daily life.
A famous verse in the Dhammapada states:
“All experience is preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind. Speak or act with a corrupted mind, and suffering follows, as the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox … Speak or act with a peaceful mind, and happiness follows, like a never-departing shadow.”
This guest speaker series will explore the ways in which care for our minds leads to care for our families, societies and our planet.
Lisa Dale Miller gave the second talk in a speaker series titled "Everyday Dhamma." She explored how difficult relationships can be rich grounds for practice, because they require us to use skills of wisdom and compassion.
Can busy lay practioners realize the fruits of the Buddhist path? How can we bring mindfulness, wisdom, and compassion into our family, community, and workplace activities? This speaker series will explore the intersection of the Buddha's teachings with the complex demands of contemporary daily life. Each speaker will explore a theme that highlights social issues or practical applications related to living a mindful life at work, with family, and in today's society.
Lisa Dale Miller gave this is the second talk in the speaker series titled “Eight-Fold Path of Awakening.” The first path factor of the Buddha’s Eightfold Noble Path is right view, also known as wise understanding. Though right view is the first of the Eightfold path factors, it represents the fruition of the succeeding seven path factors. Right view and right intention (the second path factor) together produce a supreme training in wisdom designed to awaken the faculty of penetrative understanding. The Buddha defined right view as understanding dukkha, the inherent unsatisfactoriness of all experience, its origin, cessation, and the path leading to its cessation. He also defined right view as wisely comprehending Dependent Origination—the Buddha's topology of mind and the cognitive-affective perceptual mechanisms that cause us to misapprehend self and world as separate, autonomous and permanent. The Buddha taught that wrong view is the greatest source of unwholesome mind states and by extension, unwholesome decisions and behaviors. The fruition of right view is a heart-mind liberated from avidyā, the delusion of suffering.
This series explores the Noble Eight-fold Path as a liberating practice. The Eight-fold Path is among the most practical and powerful core teachings of the Buddha. If offers practitioners a comprehensive approach for training the mind in the context of meditation, action, relationship, and life.
Psychotherapist Lisa Dale Miller discussed her textbook about Buddhist psychology, “Effortless Mindfulness: Genuine Mental Health Through Awakened Presence.” Her talk focused on the varying concept of liberation of mind in the three schools of Buddhism (Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana). She also discussed, how through the practical application of Buddhist psychology, a psychotherapist or a mental health professional might facilitate liberation of mind in the people who they work with.
