This program will be held online via Zoom. All registrants will receive the link to join the program in their Order Confirmation email. Times are ET.
Workshops
Saturday, January 21, 2023
Saturday, December 9, 2023
10:00am-4:00pm
Second Fridays of each month, EXCEPT January, August, and December:
February 10, March 10, April 14, May 12, June 9, July 14, September 8, October 13, November 10
6:00-8:30pm
This year-long program offers a precious opportunity to join a committed and dedicated community (sangha) for an extended period of time. Together, we will learn how to live our lives from the courage of our hearts.
Our sangha will explore the Buddha’s foundational teachings of kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. Known as the Brahmaviharas, or Divine Abodes, these inner qualities of heart and mind can be cultivated amid all the conditions and events of our lives, the delightful, the difficult, the uncertain.
This practice group is an invitation to nurture what already lies in each of our hearts. For while the Brahmaviharas are natural human capacities, if undeveloped they may be inaccessible to us when most needed. Over the course of our year together, each of us will be encouraged to make kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity the home of our hearts. As we explore each Brahmavihara in-depth, we learn how they strengthen, nourish, and balance one another. We will develop these inner qualities in our formal meditation practice and in our daily lives, opening our hearts and minds in the stream of activities: at work, at home, at school, in relationships, cooking a meal, drinking tea, brushing our teeth, driving our cars, riding our bicycles, or on Zoom.
As our understanding and awareness deepen, we also become more keenly aware of the moments in our daily lives when we do not embody kindness, when we turn away from suffering, when joy is forgotten, when we are reactive, and equanimity seems to be a vague memory or distant aspiration. The courage of the heart teaches us not to be discouraged by these moments. Each moment of our precious lives is an opportunity to cultivate inner clarity, inner ease, and freedom of heart that can help us face the many difficulties of today’s world in a more wholesome, spacious, and balanced way. This is an extraordinary way of living our lives, moment by moment, here and now.
For questions about this program, please send an email to teachers@cambridgeinsight.org
Our sessions will include meditation practice, teachings, exploration, and discussion of how to cultivate each quality of heart and mind in formal meditation and to practice them in daily life.
Our intention is to support your practice throughout your year-long commitment to this program. Community and homework are essential to this practice group. In addition to the two workshops and monthly class meetings, you will:
- Receive monthly reflections and home-practice assignments.
- Meet at least once a month (in between classes) with a small Dharma Buddy Group to support and encourage each other and deepen your investigation.
This program is appropriate for all practitioners, new and experienced alike. Everyone is welcome whether these teachings are brand new for you, or not. People who have practiced the Brahma Viharas before are encouraged to take this program as they grow deeper and more profound with practice.
This program will not be recorded. Full and partial scholarships are available up to 72 hours before the start of the program.
(Closed Captions (CC) for CIMC Programs are generated through “livestreaming” via Rev.com. CIMC programs are not livestreamed to any other platform for any other use.)