Ayya Medhanandi offers a historical perspective on the bhikkhuni tradition as well as insights on how to live with compassion in the world. She describes how the monastic communal experience provides abundant opportunities for the exploration of personal and collective aspirations to fulfill the goals of the Eightfold Noble Path and end suffering.

Exploring the defended heart with compassion and wisdom.

Exploring how the wisdom of emptiness manifests as compassion and how both are developed in our practice.

What is the goal of the path? As we wisely discern what leads to more happiness and peace and what leads us away, this leads to greater degrees of freedom and the deepening of our wisdom and compassion.

Compassion is at the heart of understanding suffering and the way to its end.

To be able to enter deeply into relationship, it is necessary to be able both to forgive and to assert yourself skillfully. Forgiveness and assertiveness support each other. Forgiveness clears out ill will so you can assert yourself with compassion and Wise Speech. Self-assertion takes care of your own needs so forgiveness can emerge without the sense that you are a doormat. This experiential workshop will get into the nitty-gritty of how to bring the Buddha’s profound teachings on interrelatedness, lovingkindness, and virtue (sila) into the messy real world of relationships with family members, lovers, friends, bosses, and co-workers. This workshop - led by a world renowned expert on forgiveness, and by an experienced couples and family therapist and meditation teacher - will offer user-friendly information with lots of practical methods. We'll cover: -- The Buddha’s teachings on non-harming, wise speech, compassion and kindness, and releasing ill will -- as well as his teachings on self-care, respecting your own needs, and looking out for your own happiness -- The primacy of relationships in evolution, and the deep capacities for both loving altruism and fearful aggression -- The neural machinery of emotional reactivity and developing grievances with others -- Why forgiveness and assertiveness are both important -- The foundation of basic mindfulness, precepts, Wise Speech, compassion for oneself and others, and emotional self-care -- Forgiveness practices -- Assertiveness practices There will be some voluntary paired activities as well as time for questions and discussion. While the teachings are appropriate for use in health care professions, no background with psychology or meditation is needed. Also please know that this workshop is not psychotherapy or any substitute for professional care.

Howard Thurman, the great African American activist, mystic, and theologian, once said: “Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” In the spirit of this guidance, we continue exploring how to understand and respond some of the core issues related to the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001. We are further guided by (1) understanding the inter-relationships between individual, relational, and collective domains of practice; and (2) taking wisdom, compassion, and courage (and responsiveness) as three touchstones of our practice, both more inner and more outer.

Guided by several key teachings, particularly how we might bring together wisdom, compassion, and courage, we explore some of the issues raised in reflection on the last ten years. A focus is the parallel between personal practice and responding to larger social issues.