Date/Time
Date(s): Sep. 12 - Oct. 10
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm (Mondays)

**This is a Zoom class that meets on Mondays from 12pm to 12:50pm**

This class is designed for people who have taken an Introduction to Mindfulness course at Mindful USC or elsewhere or those who have some meditation experience and wish to deepen their practice.  In this 5-week series, we will explore the cultivation of kindness, compassion, equanimity and joy – qualities of the heart that are directly linked to happiness.  Through didactic instruction, guided meditations, and group discussion, we will actively take up the investigation and practice of these “heart qualities” so that we can experience and apply them on personal, interpersonal, community and societal levels.

Teacher bio:

Allyson Pimentel, Ed.D., Associate Director of Mindful USC 

Allyson Pimentel is a psychologist and long-time insight meditation practitioner and teacher who works at the intersections of mindfulness, mental health, education, and social justice. Dr. Pimentel has been teaching mindfulness in university, medical, secular and spiritual settings, as well as in private clinical psychology practice for nearly twenty years. Formerly, she was the training director of the Mind-Body Psychiatry Clinic at NYU-Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City, Associate Director of UCLA Campus & Student Resilience, and Program Director of Mindful UCLA. 

Dr. Pimentel holds a bachelor’s degree from Brown University and a doctorate in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University. She has completed numerous professional mindfulness training programs in the Vipassana/Insight meditation tradition and also is a registered yoga teacher. 

In addition to her work with Mindful USC, Dr. Pimentel teaches at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) and at Insight LA, where she serves on the Board of Directors. She loves sharing the practice of mindfulness meditation as a tool for transformation, connection, well-being, wisdom, and individual and collective liberation.