WElcome…
I’m justine
THE Official Story
Justine Dawson is a teacher and guide of intimacy and awakening. A 25 year practitioner of Insight Meditation, she completed training as a teacher under Jack Kornfield in 2012.
In addition to her training and practice in traditional meditation and Buddhist psychology, Justine has devoted over 15 years to engaged practice and teaching in the realms of the erotic - sex, desire, self expression and connection.
She has taught throughout the US and Europe, establishing and guiding communities of practice, as well supporting dharma retreats at venerable American spiritual institutions.
From the inside out Justine works with people to unburden the shame, fear and judgment that prevents them from intimacy with all aspects of themselves and life. Both practical and provocative, she is a translator between worlds, bridging the rational and instinctual, theoretical and visceral, spiritual and mundane.
Justine is currently keeping it real in Los Angeles, CA where she teaches at Insight LA, regularly lectures at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Resource Center, mentors new teachers through the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program, and maintains an IFS-informed private practice working with individuals and couples around the world.
MY Journey
I received my first Buddhist teaching in 1993 in the form of a Thich Nhat Hanh book gifted to me by a high school friend. It talked of accessing a clarity and ease of mind, even amongst the most mundane or challenging circumstances. Reading it was an awakening to possibility for my anxious young self and I immediately knew I wanted it. It wasn’t until four years later that I first felt it in an undeniable way, on a 10 day silent retreat, and ten years before I dove into deep practice. Intensive meditation gave me a solid foundation in the workings of the mind and what existed beyond its chatter and stories. I felt so much joy in the silence and solitude of retreat. It was there that I learned the power of attention, of opening to experience as it is, and coming to know its true nature. But when I left to return to work and the world, I was confronted with many of the same challenges I had before - most especially in the realm of relating. Being in the mix with people knocked me off my ‘peaceful’ centre and right back to uncertainty and confusion. I found myself in a long term relationship with a partner who was kind but with whom I felt an unexplainable lack of aliveness and gratification. I couldn’t access the depth and beauty I was longing to touch. Honestly, no connection felt as fulfilling as the experiences I had on retreat. I definitely did not feel free. I had begun my training as a meditation teacher and contemplated becoming a nun. But instinctively I knew that in order to truly wake up I had to include my most difficult parts - that in fact they might even be the path.
At 32, I embarked on a 12 year study of eros - life force, intimacy, erotic, self expression and connection. I entered with the question of whether it was possible to feel as free in the midst of connection, chaos and motion as I did in solitude, silence and stillness. And let’s be honest, I came with questions about sex. I wanted to know sex - good sex, deep sex, sex that would make celibacy seem absurd, sex that showed me what sex was meant to be. This was not a theoretical exercise. Eros is experiential. And I wanted to experience it directly.
I trained in erotic mindfulness practices and began practicing several times a day. Because a focus of erotic mindfulness is staying open and conscious while feeling the vastest range of sensation - from the most subtle to the most intense - my ability to remain present grew, no matter what the circumstances. Eros cultivated a gravity in my being, a fuller inhabiting of my body and openness to the electricity of life flowing through it. I came to trust my body’s innate intelligence, no longer disconnected from or distrusting of its instincts. Rather than rise above life, or withdraw from it entirely, I developed an ease inside of it, a visceral confidence that comes with intimacy. And it was all done in connection, actually it happened because of connection. I got to fall in love with people, with humanity, with all their foibles and imperfections, and the ways they ‘disturbed my peace’. I started seeing the beauty and power in things I would usually reject or deny in myself and others. The erotic has a way of doing that - having you fall in love with the underbelly of life and its raw, unfiltered nature. Along the way I got to know my own thousand flavors of resistance and fear, all the reasons I wanted to pull back, give up or check out. I learned to love and include those too - and to keep going. I’m still going.
I had countless guides and friend for those 12 years of research in eros. They taught me to lift the lid on perceived reality and to not just look, but listen & feel for what is beneath the surface. I was trained to cultivate and embody both true power and full approval - two things I now know to be inextricably intertwined. Those around me provoked, encouraged, and demanded me to grow beyond my self imposed limitations. I am much of who I am today - as a human, practitioner and teacher - because of them.
Jack Kornfield and Trudy Goodman have been trusted Dharma friends and supporters throughout my journey. From 2007-2012 Jack trained me as a meditation teacher and guide. From the beginning he encouraged me to forge a unique path, beyond the bounds of conventional expression. His & Trudy’s ongoing trust and generosity of spirit have tethered me to the essence of the buddhist realization. They remind me I have access to something the world is hungry for and to offer it.
Some of my other inspirations and teachers in these years (in no particular order): The essential understanding which underpins Internal Family Systems - that there are no bad parts in the human psyche, and all parts reveal their beauty in the light of approval. The respect for somatic intelligence and nuanced nervous system healing of Somatic Experiencing. The elegance and radical responsibility of the 12-Step programs and fellowship. Carl Jung and depth psychology, especially when it comes to the workings of the unconscious mind and alchemical transformation. Gautama Buddha and his understanding as transmitted in the precision practice of the Theravaden lineage, and the tantric work of the Mahayana. The wisdom of the perennial tradition & incarnational worldview as expressed by Richard Rohr and The Centre for Action & Contemplation. The reconfiguring power and non-rational intelligence accessed only when we are taken out of control, beyond our habitual ways of knowing. In that way, sex teaches me. Relationships teach me. Silence & stillness teach me. As does clamor & chaos. Ultimately, I look to all people and experiences in my life as my teachers. I figure if it appears in my life, it has something to show me.
Throughout the years, experiential practices have been my foundation, and they undergird everything I teach. They are the intermediary between theoretical understanding and embodied knowing. Practices cultivate the qualities we desire. And they bring us into intimacy with ourselves, life and the greater mystery. On my most disciplined days, I practice Internal Family systems inquiry, insight meditation, erotic mindfulness, mindful movement, and the 12 steps. On my least disciplined days I simply aim to stay open to and feel whatever arises. Most days I land somewhere between the two.
It’s a beautiful journey. I see it as an infinite one. Both for the pleasure of the journey itself. And for all the true and wondrous realities it reveals along the way. I invite you into your own. I’m here to walk with you.