Our nature is open and free, wise, connected and loving. Yet in the melee of modern life, we become ensnared in the stresses of getting by in an increasingly destabilized world, atmospheric aggression and angst, the limitations of habitual patterns, and our hearts close. It’s easy to become anxious and depressed. We do not have to live like that: We can free our minds.

We can always come home to open resilience, and use every single event in life to increase our wisdom, compassion, and strength. This what the teachings of mind-transformation, or lojong, are all about. They take the form of one line slogans that are easy to bring to mind throughout the day, draw upon when we need, and gradually orient our lives around our paths of awakening.

The Lojong teachings use meditation, contemplation, on the spot methods, and even how to practice at the time of death. Each class will have guided meditation with recordings to use at home, and will be accessible to everyone while also a natural extension of what we’ve learned in previous courses.

In this course we’ll learn:

• To cultivate our awakened heart, or bodhichitta, a limitless spiritual resource

• To free our minds through vipashyana (insight) meditation

• Contemplative meditations to unpack difficult situations and find our way forward

• Tools to transform anxiety, despair, and difficult emotions

• Pragmatic on the spot tools to bring practice into daily life

• Strategies to keep an attainable and inspiring daily practice in constrained time

• Pithy instructions on practicing with death and dying

• The classic Lojong text, and accessible commentaries including Pema Chodron’s

• Support from community, if we so choose, organized through a private discussion forum