Meditation Courses & Events

Thursday, September 18 

6:30 – 8:00pm

Perhaps you, like many of us, have wished for a way to navigate life's challenges with more ease and genuine happiness. The heart of Buddhist teachings offers just that – a profound path to lasting peace and joy, discovered not by escaping life, but by gently transforming our own minds.

This one-session program explores key Buddhist insights to enrich our lives:

Finding Wisdom from Within: Revealing and connecting with our true nature.

Embracing Impermanence and Emptiness: Discover that all things are constantly changing, including thoughts, emotions, and the sense of self. This understanding empowers us to release attachments and find inner peace amidst life's fluctuations.

Cultivating Compassion: Explore the power of kindness and understanding toward others and yourself, creating a positive effect in the world.

Working with Mind: Learn to foster inner calm.

For over 2500 years, the Buddha's wisdom has guided countless individuals toward peace and understanding. These teachings are not about avoiding life's difficulties, but about discovering a different way to be with them—one that brings more ease, compassion, and confidence in your ability to handle whatever comes your way. They offer a doorway to deeper peace and understanding, allowing you to accept uncertainty as a source of strength.

Do not sign up for this class if you have registered for “Meditations on Impermanence: The More Things Change.” 

This course is offered through Hudson River Community Education.

Weekly class at Dobbs Ferry High School, 505 Broadway, Dobbs Ferry

10 Thursdays, 6:30 – 8:00pm

Sept 18 -Dec 18. No class October 2, 30 and November 6, 27

We all encounter change and loss. Often it’s in small ways, but sometimes impermanence turns our world upside down. We may have experienced a personal encounter with death. We may notice unending change all around us. But the question remains: have we fully taken the message of impermanence to heart?

In the teachings of the Buddha, the recognition of impermanence gives a sense of urgency and challenges us to question our life’s priorities. The deeper implications of impermanence—that everything is interdependent and selfless—help us to let go of grasping and emerge from self-destructive habits. Taking the message of impermanence and death to heart fully reveals the deathless nature of mind and is the doorway to freedom.

In this 10-week course, we are guided through a series of contemplations and meditations on impermanence, death, selflessness and emptiness, allowing us to step out of the clutches of fear and discover a new meaning, a new inspiration, and a new joy in our lives.

· How can reflecting on impermanence inspire deeper meaning and purpose in our lives?

· What happens when we fully embrace the truth of change and impermanence? 

· What are our fears about facing change and death? 

· What distracts us from this truth, and what impact does this have?

This course is offered through Hudson River Community Education.

Weekly class at Dobbs Ferry High School, 505 Broadway, Dobbs Ferry

TUESDAYS, 5:30 - 6:30

Summer Schedule:

June 24

July 1, 8, 22, 29

August 12, 26

September 2 (LAST SESSION)

We find ourselves wondering where to focus, what to do, until we find ourselves spinning round and round, scattered in all directions. It's time to bring the mind home. 

The summer program will include guided meditation and guided self-compassion practice.

Rest in natural great peace this exhausted mind,                               Beaten helplessly by karma and neurotic thoughts                                Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves                                          

In the infinite ocean of samsara. 

Rest in natural great peace.                                                                                         --Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche

TUESDAYS, 5:30 - 6:30

Summer Schedule:

June 24

July 1, 8, 22, 29

August 12, 26

September 2 (LAST SESSION)

We find ourselves wondering where to focus, what to do, until we find ourselves spinning round and round, scattered in all directions. It's time to bring the mind home. 

The summer program will include guided meditation and guided self-compassion practice.

Rest in natural great peace this exhausted mind,                               Beaten helplessly by karma and neurotic thoughts                                Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves                                          

In the infinite ocean of samsara. 

Rest in natural great peace.                                                                                         --Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche

Thursdays 

March 20 - June 5, 2025 

6:30pm – 8:00pm

No class Apr 17 and May 15    

This 10-week course is more traditional look at compassion and wisdom – bodhichitta, "the heart of enlightened mind” - and how to develop and deepen it in our modern daily lives.  As with everything, we begin with love and build outward on that. We look at our boundless qualities of love, compassion, joy, and impartiality/equanimity, our courage to use them, and we learn practices to develop and deepen them, building one on the other, leading us closer to revealing and connecting with our true nature.

This course explores the logic of love and wisdom, and how these benefit us and others in our journey. 

Each session will include a spacious program of teachings, reflection, discussions, and guided practice.

This course is offered through Hudson River Community Education. 

Saturday APRIL 5 

9:30am - 4:00pm 

Join us for a special day of guided meditation and meditation instruction as we learn to develop and practice mindfulness and awareness as taught in the Buddhist Nyingma tradition. 

This one-day program is open to everyone, beginning meditators and anyone who wishes to refresh or deepen their practice. The program will include a vegetarian lunch, and time to stroll the grounds. 

The practice of meditation leads us to being more present in ourselves, resting in the present moment, allowing the mind to come home. 

Through meditation, we connect with ourselves, we are truer to ourselves, we see our interconnectedness with others and all things, and we find our own nature of love and compassion. 

As a result, we can be kinder, more caring, loving, and compassionate human beings. This one-day retreat gives us an opportunity to open a door to this understanding and experience.

Wednesdays, 6:30 - 8:30pm

 5wks – Jan 8, Jan 15, Jan 22, Feb 5, Feb 12 

 This 5-week course will focus on meditation instruction and guided meditation practices, as well as examining the altruistic attitude of benefitting others, and using chanting and mantra as transformational elements in our practice. 

Using an understanding of emptiness to work against the grips of ego, we use the power of mind in the form of invocation to diminish self-grasping. Realizing the interconnectedness of all things helps to connect us and others. Using mantras not only occupies the mind, it invokes the presence of those who inspire us to be our better selves. 

ONLINE. Saturdays 1pm - 2:30pm

January 18 - March 8, 2025

“Death is real, it comes without warning. This body will be a corpse.”

            - from 'The Four Thoughts'

While we all know we are going to die some day, most of us go about our daily lives acting as if it will never happen. Ignoring the reality of our own death is not only burying our head in the sand, but it also means we are missing an incredible opportunity to allow the reality of our mortality to inform and enrich the way we live.  

If you are interested in exploring your own attitudes about death and would like to learn from the practical wisdom and spiritual outlook of the Tibetan Buddhist teachings on preparing for death, then this course is for you. We will present teachings on death and dying as found in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, including  guidance on meditation and the Essential Phowa, a practice for the moment of death. Participants will be guided in structured contemplation sessions as a way to deepen their understanding and encourage personal engagement with these Buddhist teachings. 

Wednesdays, 6:30pm – 8:00pm  

Sept 18 – Dec 18, 2024 

We all want to be free of stress and anxiety, but how can we do it?  The essence of all Buddhist teachings is to arrive at lasting peace and happiness through the practice of meditation, realizing our natural awareness. 

Join us to: 

-Learn, establish or deepen a daily meditation practice 

-Create space to experience genuine inner peace and contentment 

-Learn how to bring about lasting transformation in your life 

Each of the nine sessions will feature a rich yet spacious program of teachings, guided meditation, reflection and discussion.

This course is offered through Hudson River Community Education. No sessions Oct 2, 23, Nov 6, 20, 27.

This course was last offered Spring 2024.   

Training our hearts and minds in compassion – overcoming our anxiety and depression – allows us to uncover and reconnect to our true selves: becoming more grounded and stronger, so we can face and address what ails us and others. 

Learn and develop the Buddhist meditation practice of Tonglen, nurturing our capacity for care and love for ourselves and others. At the same time, we stop spiraling our self-obsessive and negative thoughts.

Each session will include a spacious program of teachings, reflection, discussions, and guided practice.

This course is offered through Hudson River Community Education. 

This course was last offered Winter 2024

These days so many of us suffer from a sense of loneliness, disconnecting us from others and ourselves. The deepest forms of self-care allow us to come home to ourselves, a deeply felt sense of who we are. The Buddhist meditation practice of Loving-Kindness alleviates fear and generates a quiet confidence in ourselves. Self-compassion is the seed from which compassion for others grows, dissolving loneliness in this heart-centered understanding.

Each session of this 6 week course will include a spacious program of teachings, reflection, discussions, and guided practice.

This course is offered through Hudson River Community Education.