About
Lisa Kring is an LCSW and Theravada Vipassana practitioner with over twenty years of practice experience. She is a graduate of Spirit Rock's Dedicated Practitioner's Program and Advanced Practitioner Program, and has studied with teachers including Dan Siegel, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ven Analayo, and others. She serves as a senior teacher at InsightLA for over 15 years, leading MBSR, Mindful Self-Compassion, and mindfulness fundamentals classes. Kring has facilitated mindfulness training in corporate settings and in schools serving marginalized communities in Los Angeles County. She worked with cancer patients at UCLA's SIMMS/MANN Center and the Benjamin Center Cancer Support Community for over a decade. She is certified as a death doula and works as a KAP integrative therapist in palliative care.
Teaching focus
Lisa Kring, LCSW's teaching focus, drawn from the source profile, sits in the Vipassana and Insight traditions. Several threads come up: compassion training that doesn't collapse into pity or burnout; dharma applied to social and collective suffering; and dharma in dialogue with race, identity, and power. On talks, the style is closer to thinking-along than presenting. Lisa Kring, LCSW works with whatever shows up in the room rather than reading from notes, which is part of why these talks land as conversational instead of scripted. Short pauses, longer sits, and questions that come back to direct experience are usual. Listed specialties on the source profile include stress, grief, chronic pain, corporate. The bigger move Lisa Kring, LCSW keeps making is back toward attention itself: what's happening, how it's being held, and what gets in the way. That keeps the teaching close to practice rather than drifting into commentary about practice. For talks, schedules, and longer essays, the affiliated organization's page is where the live material lives. Lisa Kring, LCSW's sessions tend to keep returning to the body, to breath, and to the felt quality of attention as the steady ground that the rest rests on. Lisa Kring, LCSW's sessions tend to keep returning to the body, to breath, and to the felt quality of attention as the steady ground that the rest rests on.
Background
Lisa Kring, LCSW teaches in the Vipassana and Insight traditions. The teaching home is InsightLA. From the teacher's own profile: Lisa Kring is an LCSW (MSW-USC) and is a committed practitioner of Theravada Vipassana mediation for over twenty years. She is a graduate of the Dedicated Practitioner’s Program and Advanced Practitioner Program at Spirit Rock, and has studied with many teachers over the years, including Dan Siegel, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ven Analayo, Ven Ayya Tathaaloka and Ven Sayadow U Tejaniya, and presently counts Guy Armstrong, as well as Kittisaro and Thanissara, as her guiding teachers. Lisa is a senior InsightLA teacher for over 15 years, leading classes such as MBSR, Mindful Self- Compassion, Awakening Joy, and Basics of Mindfulness. In addition, her teaching has led her to mindfulness trainings in corporate settings, such as William Morris Endeavor, Huffington Post, Citibank, Hulu, Homeboy, and ABC News, just to name a few. Through Insight In Action, a social justice initiative at InsightLA, Lisa is honored to be part of a team of teachers offering mindful training and support in organizations on the front lines of mental health and social justice work, as well as schools in marginalized communities throughout Los Angeles County. Through the support and guidance of Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn, Lisa created a curriculum and taught Mindfulness for Parents classes at Insight LA, and throughout schools in the Los Angeles area. Outside of InsightLA, Lisa facilitated mindfulness groups and classes with people touched by cancer at the SIMMS/MANN Center for Integrative Oncology at UCLA and the Benjamin Center Cancer Support Community in Santa Monica for over ten years. She is a certified death doula with Alua Arthur of Going with Grace, and works as a KAP integrative therapist with Mystic Health, focusing on the therapeutic needs of patients and caregivers in palliative care. Lisa lives in Los Angeles with her husband and recognizes her two young adult children as her deepest teachers in life. __________ Lisa offers a complimentary 15-minute consultation for those curious about therapy. Click here to book your session. In the Insight stream Lisa Kring, LCSW works inside, the emphasis is on direct attention to body, feeling tone, and mind, alongside the brahmaviharas and an ongoing investigation of how clinging and aversion arise. Talks tend to be conversational rather than scripted, and there's room for sila and ethics to be talked about as part of practice rather than as a separate topic.
Lineage
Lisa Kring, LCSW teaches as a lay teacher in the Vipassana and Insight traditions. The institutional home, per the source listing, is InsightLA, and that's where most of the public teaching schedule and any retreat offerings will be posted. The Insight lineage in the West runs through teachers like Mahasi Sayadaw, U Ba Khin, Anagarika Munindra, and Dipa Ma into the founders of IMS, Spirit Rock, and the regional centers, and most contemporary Insight teachers position themselves somewhere in that broad family.
What to expect
On a class or retreat with Lisa Kring, LCSW, the basic shape is short instruction, longer sittings, and some Q&A. The container is shaped by InsightLA, so format details, fees, and access policies follow that organization's norms. Expect plenty of silence, less talking-at-you than you might think, and an emphasis on letting the practice do its work rather than chasing experiences. For exact dates, registration, and any sliding-scale or scholarship information, There's usually a short Q&A window and, on retreats, optional teacher interviews where students can bring specific questions about their practice. There's usually a short Q&A window and, on retreats, optional teacher interviews where students can bring specific questions about their practice.
