Events
Upcoming
Spirit Rock Event: Brahma Vihara 4-Week Course Begins (Week 1)
The Four Buddhist Heart Practices (Brahmavihāras)
https://courses.spiritrock.org/sp/the-four-buddhist-heart-practices-brahmaviharas/
Why this course?
Stress, conflict, and uncertainty touch all of our lives. Too often, we long for balance, kindness, and ease but struggle to find them.
This course offers time-tested tools to cultivate resilience, deepen your relationships, and open your heart. The Four Brahmavihāras—Lovingkindness, Compassion, Appreciative Joy, and Equanimity—are timeless practices for meeting life with clarity and care.
By integrating these qualities, you’ll learn to respond to challenges with grace, steady your mind in difficult times, and nurture joy in yourself and others.
Whether your intention is personal growth, healing relationships, or discovering inner peace, this course provides a pathway to live with love, balance, and kindness—qualities our world needs now more than ever.
Spirit Rock Event: Brahma Vihara 4-Week Course Begins (Week 2)
The Four Buddhist Heart Practices (Brahmavihāras)
https://courses.spiritrock.org/sp/the-four-buddhist-heart-practices-brahmaviharas/
Why this course?
Stress, conflict, and uncertainty touch all of our lives. Too often, we long for balance, kindness, and ease but struggle to find them.
This course offers time-tested tools to cultivate resilience, deepen your relationships, and open your heart. The Four Brahmavihāras—Lovingkindness, Compassion, Appreciative Joy, and Equanimity—are timeless practices for meeting life with clarity and care.
By integrating these qualities, you’ll learn to respond to challenges with grace, steady your mind in difficult times, and nurture joy in yourself and others.
Whether your intention is personal growth, healing relationships, or discovering inner peace, this course provides a pathway to live with love, balance, and kindness—qualities our world needs now more than ever.
IMCB Daylong Event: Anapanasati: Practicing the 16 Steps of Mindfulness Breathing
IMCB Daylong Event
Anapanasati: Practicing the 16 Steps of Mindfulness Breathing with James Baraz
Spirit Rock Event: Brahma Vihara 4-Week Course Begins (Week 3)
The Four Buddhist Heart Practices (Brahmavihāras)
https://courses.spiritrock.org/sp/the-four-buddhist-heart-practices-brahmaviharas/
Why this course?
Stress, conflict, and uncertainty touch all of our lives. Too often, we long for balance, kindness, and ease but struggle to find them.
This course offers time-tested tools to cultivate resilience, deepen your relationships, and open your heart. The Four Brahmavihāras—Lovingkindness, Compassion, Appreciative Joy, and Equanimity—are timeless practices for meeting life with clarity and care.
By integrating these qualities, you’ll learn to respond to challenges with grace, steady your mind in difficult times, and nurture joy in yourself and others.
Whether your intention is personal growth, healing relationships, or discovering inner peace, this course provides a pathway to live with love, balance, and kindness—qualities our world needs now more than ever.
Spirit Rock Event: Brahma Vihara 4-Week Course Begins (Week 4)
The Four Buddhist Heart Practices (Brahmavihāras)
https://courses.spiritrock.org/sp/the-four-buddhist-heart-practices-brahmaviharas/
Why this course?
Stress, conflict, and uncertainty touch all of our lives. Too often, we long for balance, kindness, and ease but struggle to find them.
This course offers time-tested tools to cultivate resilience, deepen your relationships, and open your heart. The Four Brahmavihāras—Lovingkindness, Compassion, Appreciative Joy, and Equanimity—are timeless practices for meeting life with clarity and care.
By integrating these qualities, you’ll learn to respond to challenges with grace, steady your mind in difficult times, and nurture joy in yourself and others.
Whether your intention is personal growth, healing relationships, or discovering inner peace, this course provides a pathway to live with love, balance, and kindness—qualities our world needs now more than ever.
Spirit Rock Event: Equanimity Retreat
Equanimity Retreat
Equanimity (upekkhā) is a highly-valued quality in Buddhist teachings. But what is it, and how do we cultivate it in our meditation practice? How can we access equanimity in daily
life, especially in the midst of uncertainty, fear, and sadness over the suffering in the world?
This retreat will offer instructions, talks, sitting and walking meditations, and practice discussions to support the development of equanimity in our formal practice. We can then
apply equanimity to our life off the cushion.
This retreat is silent except for teacher-led Q&A, small groups, or other practice meetings.
Esalen Institute Event: Being Present for Your Life
Being Present for Your Life: Introduction to Mindfulness Meditation
How much are you present in your own life? Most of us spend more time worrying about the future, replaying the past, or getting lost in fantasy than experiencing what life offers us right now. This moment is our opportunity to be directly intimate with our lives while learning, through difficult lessons, how to open our hearts.
Esalen Institute Event: Being Present for Your Life
Being Present for Your Life: Introduction to Mindfulness Meditation
How much are you present in your own life? Most of us spend more time worrying about the future, replaying the past, or getting lost in fantasy than experiencing what life offers us right now. This moment is our opportunity to be directly intimate with our lives while learning, through difficult lessons, how to open our hearts.
Esalen Institute Event: Being Present for Your Life
Being Present for Your Life: Introduction to Mindfulness Meditation
How much are you present in your own life? Most of us spend more time worrying about the future, replaying the past, or getting lost in fantasy than experiencing what life offers us right now. This moment is our opportunity to be directly intimate with our lives while learning, through difficult lessons, how to open our hearts.
Awakening Joy Course Begins
Join James Baraz every other Tuesday for an internationally recognized course on opening to life with appreciation, resilience and an open heart. Incline the mind towards well-being and gain deeper insight that will promote authentic joy.
Spirit Rock Event: Daylong
Spirit Rock Daylong
Equanimity (upekkhā) is a highly-valued quality in Buddhist teachings. But what is it, and how do we cultivate it in our meditation practice? How can we access equanimity in daily
life, especially in the midst of uncertainty, fear, and sadness over the suffering in the world?
This retreat will offer instructions, talks, sitting and walking meditations, and practice discussions to support the development of equanimity in our formal practice. We can then
apply equanimity to our life off the cushion.
This retreat is silent except for teacher-led Q&A, small groups, or other practice meetings.
Connecting Mind and Heart
The Mind and the Heart are not separate. We’ll take this week of silence to explore and put into practice various skillful means to let go of unproductive habits of mind. We can then experience insights that heal, uplift and ultimately free us. This results in a clear, quiet mind and a relaxed open heart.
The retreat will consist of silent sitting and walking practice, meditation instructions, interviews with the teachers and dharma talks. The meditation techniques we practice are over 2,500 years old and are mostly based on the Theravada Buddhist tradition. Taking part in the retreat does not, however, require an adherence to Buddhism or any adaptation of personal faith.
Why take part in the retreat? What happens on a retreat?
The retreat is suitable for both beginners and experienced practitioners. Beginners have a chance to become familiar with basic meditation techniques and to see their effects clearly in practice, so a retreat is a good way to begin a meditation practice. For experienced meditators, a retreat is a great opportunity to deepen and clarify their practice under the guidance of qualified teachers.
Teachings are offered mainly in English. The daily routine consists mostly of sitting and walking meditation and also includes instructions for meditation, an evening talk, a working period and a voluntary exercise of mindful movement. The retreat is held in silence except during individual or group interviews with a teacher.
The retreat includes a daily breakfast, lunch and light dinner, all vegan. Participants stay in 2-4 person rooms. The retreat will take place at the Kreivilä course centre, which is located in Matku, near Forssa, on the shore of Lake Matkujärvi.
Insight Berkeley Daylong, with Eve Decker and Tricia Choi.
Creativity as a Response
to Anxiety
Join us for a day of mindful sitting and walking meditation at the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery. This hybrid in-person/online event will provide you with the opportunity to deepen your practice with like-minded friends in a sacred setting.
Whether you're a seasoned practitioner or new to meditation, this daylong retreat offers a space for quietly connecting to the stillness within. James and Eve will offer instructions, Dharma talks, and Dharma music. Offered on a dana basis.
Join us on Zoom by clicking HERE
If you have difficulty joining with the above link, join manually using this information:
Meeting ID: 829 2034 2504
To join our meeting by phone, dial your local number
and have the passcode 029590 ready.
+16699009128,,460493377# US (San Jose)
+13462487799,,460493377# US (Houston)
Find your local number:
https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdC65A1M74
Healing States Silent Retreat
Join us as we celebrate Earth Day with a weekend of joyful connection in honor of our magnificent home—this living Earth. Together, we will cultivate Earth awareness and celebrate our interconnection with all life through Dharma talks, meditation, music, and community. Join the Spirit Rock community as we celebrate the power of collective action and step forward as compassionate stewards of the Earth.
Awakening the Heart
This workshop is designed to support us as we open to our own goodness and learn practices to awaken love in others. Based on timeless Buddhist principles, as well as key findings in modern neuroscience, we will explore how to cultivate and sustain certain wholesome states, which, through practice, become the perspective we embody.
By awakening our hearts, we have the power to affect both ourselves and others in a profound way. With practical and accessible exercises and teachings, we will explore the full spectrum of the awakened heart. We’ll discover ways to love ourselves and extend that love into our relationships so that we can truly delight in the joy of others.
During our time together, we will:
Study the science behind real happiness.
Discover healthier habits and beliefs through powerful awareness practices.
Embrace and be embraced by a supportive community.
Learn tools for a solid mindfulness practice.
Finally, we’ll explore freely expressing our capacity for compassionate action in a spirit of contribution. In this way, our own awakening heart becomes a gift to our troubled world. Join us as we practice and explore together!
Cultivating a Joyful Resilient—an EcoDharma Meditation Retreat
Join us as we celebrate Earth Day with a weekend of joyful connection in honor of our magnificent home—this living Earth. Together, we will cultivate Earth awareness and celebrate our interconnection with all life through Dharma talks, meditation, music, and community. Join the Spirit Rock community as we celebrate the power of collective action and step forward as compassionate stewards of the Earth.
Earth Day 2025: A Weekend Gathering and Celebration
Join us as we celebrate Earth Day with a weekend of joyful connection in honor of our magnificent home—this living Earth. Together, we will cultivate Earth awareness and celebrate our interconnection with all life through Dharma talks, meditation, music, and community. Join the Spirit Rock community as we celebrate the power of collective action and step forward as compassionate stewards of the Earth.
Insight Berkeley Daylong, with James Baraz
Insight Berkeley Daylong
Join us for a day of mindful sitting and walking meditation at the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery. This hybrid in-person/online event will provide you with the opportunity to deepen your practice with like-minded friends in a sacred setting.
Whether you're a seasoned practitioner or new to meditation, this daylong retreat offers a space for quietly connecting to the stillness within. James and Eve will offer instructions, Dharma talks, and Dharma music. Offered on a dana basis.
Join us on Zoom by clicking HERE
If you have difficulty joining with the above link, join manually using this information:
Meeting ID: 460 493 377
Passcode: 029590
To join our meeting by phone, dial your local number
and have the passcode 029590 ready.
+16699009128,,460493377# US (San Jose)
+13462487799,,460493377# US (Houston)
Find your local number:
https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdC65A1M74
Awakening Body, Mind and Heart—The Joy of Mindfulness
This 5-day silent online retreat with James Baraz, Suzie Brown, Zoe Zohs and Nadine Levy will provide you with the precious opportunity to deepen your practice and engage in embodied mindfulness from your home environment.
The focus of the 5 days will be on cultivating joy, ease and balance through the practice of sustained mindfulness, embracing mind, body and heart and offering experience a soft place to land.
Each day will include two sessions of mindful movement, a Dharma talk and meditation instructions. The retreat will support you to deepen into stillness and actively cultivate wholesome states of mind that promote joy and gratitude in the present moment.
The daily schedule will span from 7am to 7pm (Sydney time) and will include periods of online and offline practice.
Small group interviews with the teachers will also be offered.
The retreat is open to all, and no particular experience is required.
Awakening Body, Mind and Heart—The Joy of Mindfulness
This 5-day silent online retreat with James Baraz, Suzie Brown, Zoe Zohs and Nadine Levy will provide you with the precious opportunity to deepen your practice and engage in embodied mindfulness from your home environment.
The focus of the 5 days will be on cultivating joy, ease and balance through the practice of sustained mindfulness, embracing mind, body and heart and offering experience a soft place to land.
Each day will include two sessions of mindful movement, a Dharma talk and meditation instructions. The retreat will support you to deepen into stillness and actively cultivate wholesome states of mind that promote joy and gratitude in the present moment.
The daily schedule will span from 7am to 7pm (Sydney time) and will include periods of online and offline practice.
Small group interviews with the teachers will also be offered.
The retreat is open to all, and no particular experience is required.
Equanimity: Finding Balance in Difficult Times
A Hybrid Weekend Retreat with James Baraz
Equanimity or Upekkha is a highly valued quality in Buddhist teachings. It is listed in the Four Divine Abodes, the Seven Factors of Enlightenment, and the Ten Paramitas. When highly developed it is the precursor to the experience of awakening. But what is equanimity? How can we cultivate it in our meditation practice? Even more how can we access it in our daily life, especially in times like these with so much uncertainty, fear, sadness, and suffering in the world?
Through periods of silent sitting and walking, meditation instructions geared to cultivating equanimity, talks and practice discussions, we will explore the development of equanimity in our formal practice and aspects of equanimity that can be applied pragmatically to our life off the cushion. This course is appropriate for both new and experienced practitioners.
