In meditation, resting lies side by side with waking up. Meditation redefines rest.
It’s a state of finding energy in profound acceptance of your most immediate experience. Resting in meditation allows you to take up space and remain present with what’s there in that space. No need to banish thoughts, feelings and impulses. They get to come along for the rest. Meditation is a safe harbor.
Beyond all of our resistance lies the gold. Resting in meditation allows what is to be a gateway to a wakeful, compassionate and creative life.
The Four Noble Truths- Six Wednesdays of online study 5/22-6/19 1pm-2:30pm EST
About Marisa
My name is Marisa Viola and I’ve been meditating and studying Buddhism since 2008. I took Refuge and Boddhisattva vows in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition with Venerable Robina Courtin and have had the good fortune to study with Venerable Thich Nhat Hahn and many great teachers of various lineages. In 2012, I was invited into the Interdependence Project’s yearlong immersion program, led by Ethan Nichtern. My aspiration was never to teach, but to deepen my practice and to keep learning about the teachings.
I began teaching here and there in 2013, but it wasn’t until 2016 that I felt called to teach as widely as possible. Humans are processing a dense amount of information, choices, anxieties and pressures. Coasting through has become impossible for most of us. Meditation offers a way for us to work with the one thing that we can effect the most directly: our own minds. In this way, meditation is a boots on the ground resiliency practice. It’s ironic that dropping our armor for a few minutes a day makes us stronger, but it does. It makes us more adaptable, compassionate and confident. As a teacher, I offer techniques and teachings that are designed to help you open up to and cultivate those qualities.
My teaching experience is extensive. As a senior teacher at MNDFL in New York, I taught thousands of classes and special events, as well as taught in their teacher training program and privately mentored aspiring teachers. I’ve taught in corporations, universities, hospitals and prisons. I’ve seen that there’s nothing more transformative than learning to work with one’s own mind, and I’ve seen that transformation happen in the most surprising places.
Ongoing Offerings
Weekly Classes
Meditating with other people, whether virtually or in person, has unique benefits. Together we create an environment that nurtures growth in the practice. For some that may mean taking the opportunity to share and ask questions, for others it may mean listening and absorbing. Either way, there’s an undeniable acknowledgement that it’s safe to let ourselves be as we are. Just showing up to meditate together creates a collective shift.
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Corporate Meditation
What if every place of business, every school, every household, took some time every day for meditation? What a different world we’d live in. I’ve taught in just about every sector of society and there’s nowhere that I haven’t found people craving a moment to pause, the space to process, a chance to catch up with themselves. Meditation is proven to make people more productive, more empathetic and more creative. Ask me about the brain science. It’s fascinating! Contact me >
One-on-One
Working in a one-on-one setting is an opportunity to walk on the path of practice in close proximity. Here we can really get into it together. And by “it,” I mean some Buddhist teachings, the ups and downs of practice, and integrating the practice into your life in a deeper way. Meditation isn’t just a dreamy cushion practice, but a way of relating to your own life and mind. Truly committing to that path is transformative. Contact me >