A course on Empathic Joy and the Divine Smile

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Casual, conversational, small, and with lots of coaching. This course only has 8 people in it. 

 

At the end of this course, you’ll understand the fundamental principles of joy. Empathic Joy is one of the practices within the Lovingkindness meditations. It’s essential to balance suffering in the world with empathic joy. You’ll learn what clear and genuine joy is compared to vague or sentimental joy. Empathic joy developed in the context of suffering and compassion makes happiness more stable, reliable, and based on your own choices.

 

You’ll learn how the ego gets in the way of joy and what you can do about it. Counter-intuitively, empathic joy is related to your ability to practice compassion for the suffering around you. We’ll revisit how to have an appropriate relationship to suffering so your joy isn’t based on running away or avoiding negativity. Next, we’ll examine how your joy can invigorate your relationship to suffering, which in turn frees you up to focus on what you want to focus on – the clear experience of joy. At the end, we’ll explore the divine smile of compassion, joy and equanimity. This is the calm smile that persists despite the turbulent conditions of our world. 

 

Empathic joy can be a momentous occasion or the slow burn of happiness in all conditions. This course will give you the principles to develop this practice on your own.

 

Tuesday nights 7:00-9:00

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Fee is $200 or donation

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More information to come.