Events
Beginner’s Mind Series, Part 2
Living a Compassionate Life in a Field of Care, with Radhule Weininger
When: Sunday, March 29*, 1-5pm
Where: Santa Barbara Middle School, Lotus Theater, 1321 Alameda Padre Serra or via our Special Events/ Retreats Zoom link
Register: The suggested donation/session is $30. Donations may be made in person at the door or via our website. Participants may attend the entire series or individual classes. A refreshment break will be served. To reserve your spot, please click on the link:
*Note: Originally scheduled for March 28.
About: This class will give you a comprehensive understanding of compassion meditation and how compassion works. We will explore what compassion is, where it comes from, and how we can access it. Everything we care about – our relationships, our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual life, our ability to engage with others – depends on our ability to access love and compassion within ourselves first. Then we can share our love with others. In a step-by-step approach, we will learn through simple practices how to:
Access the compassion and love that is already within us
Hold our own difficult feelings in this vast field of compassion
Use newly found generosity to share this care with others
This approach is especially important in our often-disturbing times to avoid empathic distress, compassion fatigue, and/or burnout. Together, we will learn how to make our own lives and our world a healthier, more enjoyable place.
Beginner’s Mind Series, Parts 3 and 4
Mark your calendars for the third and fourth sessions in our four-part Beginner’s Mind series:
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Full Moon Meditation and Sound Bath
When: Tuesday, March 31, 7-8 p.m., with Peter Moreno
Where: Santa Barbara Middle School, Lotus Theater, 1321 Alameda Padre Serra
About: This popular monthly session features guided meditation, bells, and singing bowls for a soothing experience. The suggested donation is $10; in-person only. Please notify Peter at 805-453-1813 by noon on March 31 if you plan to attend.
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We’re Excited to Welcome Lama John Makransky
Join Us for a Day-long Retreat on April 25
Lama John Makransky, Ph.D., an Associate Professor of Buddhism and Comparative Theology at Boston College, will be our guest facilitator for a retreat on Opening to the Unconditional Love and Wisdom of Our Buddha Nature on Saturday, April 25. (Please see details below.) This class is open to everyone, regardless of their level of experience with meditation or any other contemplative practice. It will be offered in person at Santa Barbara Middle School and via Zoom for those who cannot attend in person.
More About the Santa Barbara Retreat with John
About: The retreat will feature short talks, guided meditations, and discussion. For a detailed description, contact us at mindfulheartprograms@gmail.com.
When: Saturday, April 25, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m.
Where: Santa Barbara Middle School, Lotus Theater, 1321 Alameda Padre Serra, or via Zoom
Enroll: Use this link to sign up for the class and receive Zoom instructions. The suggested donation is $60, in person or via our website. MHP will provide two refreshment breaks. Participants are asked to bring their own lunch.
Other opportunities to connect with John while he is visiting the West Coast include:
A Sustainable Compassion Training residential retreat with Radhule from April 18-21 at the Big Bear Retreat Center. They will expand on the theme: Opening to the Unconditional Love and Wisdom of Our Buddha Nature. The retreat will be held at InsightLA Meditation’s Big Bear Retreat Center. For information: 424 229 5099; office@insightla.org
Sunday, April 26, 10-11:15 a.m., during our weekly online session featuring mindfulness, awareness, and Earth connection practices with Radhule and Michael Kearney. Use the daily meditations and weekly class Zoom link.
Participants are encouraged to listen to guided meditation practices recorded by Radhule in connection with her newly published book, Healing Spiritual Homesickness, and read John’s book, How Compassion Works (Shambala 2025, Paul Condon, co-author), to enhance their knowledge. Makransky and Condon are well known for developing a Sustainable Compassion Training model that facilitates access to our innate capacities for compassion and awareness.
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Online Retreat: Compassionate Awareness with Radhule Weininger and Special Guest Jessica Morey
When: Saturday, May 16, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
Where: Online only via Zoom
Enroll: Register here for Zoom instructions
Suggested donation: $30 via MHP website
About: Radhule Weininger and special guest Jessica Morey will co-teach this online retreat. Through guided meditation, teaching, and reflection, Radhule and Jessica will explore how compassionate awareness opens the door to inner freedom. Participants will:
Be guided in self-compassion and awareness meditations
Obtain tools for working with difficult emotions
Gain a felt sense of inner safety, support, spaciousness, and ease
Receive resources for continuing practice after the retreat
Radhule and Jessica have over 70 years of combined meditation practice and teaching experience. Jessica is a co-founder and a lead teacher of Inward Bound Mindfulness Education (www.iBme.info). She has a BA in Environmental Engineering and master’s degrees in Sustainable Development and International Affairs.
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Deep Resilience 2.0: Remembering Who We Really Are
When: Saturday, May 30, 9 a.m.-4: p.m.
Where: Sedgwick Reserve, UCSB research facility and grounds, Santa Ynez Valley.
About: This day-long retreat at the beautiful Sedgwick Reserve was so popular last year that we are offering it again this year. Class size will be capped at 30 participants. The day will feature classroom lectures, guided meditation, group discussion/circle, and outdoor time on the reserve for a nature-connection vision quest. MHP faculty will include Michael Kearney, Radhule Weininger, Andrew Symth, and special guests. Refreshment breaks will be provided. Participants will bring their own lunch. Registration and continuing education units for therapists are pending.
Newsletters
Heart Medicine in Difficult Times
In this online year-long drop-in series, Radhule will teach you psychological and spiritual skills that will guide you to address the root causes behind painful patterns and show how to address them with comprehensive practices. Working with painful patterns is especially necessary in these times, as many of our old painful patterns are getting triggered by current difficult circumstances in our world. Uncertainty and trauma bring up our own woundedness and fear. In order to be engaged in our world, we need to heal our painful patterns and connect to the wholeness that is already there.
Register with InsightLA
Awake Aware: Touching the Sky behind the clouds and bringing it back to Earth
New Series with Radhule Weininger, MD, PHD.
This Monday (over zoom), we will continue an exciting new series on awake awareness meditations and the pointing-out instructions. We are repeating this series on Monday nights at 7.15 pm (Yoga Soup, Studio 2, as well as zoom).
Location: Yoga Soup, 28 Parker Way, Santa Barbara
Heart Aware: Mindful Body Breath and Awake Awareness Meditation Group
Time: Thursdays at 6:30pm (beginning December 1st, 2022)
Location: Saint Michael’s University Church, 6586 Picasso Rd, Isla Vista, CA
We will meet in person to practice meditation and self-compassion. Join us to cultivate a regular mindfulness practice and experience a sense of community and belonging on a weekly basis.
Heart Medicine in Difficult Times
with Radhule Weininger, MD, PhD
Sunday, August 28, 12:30-2pm
Last Sunday every month in 2022
In this online year-long drop-in series, Radhule will teach you psychological and spiritual skills that will guide you to address the root causes behind painful patterns and show how to address them with comprehensive practices. Working with painful patterns is especially necessary in these times, as many of our old painful patterns are getting triggered by current difficult circumstances in our world. Uncertainty and trauma bring up our own woundedness and fear. In order to be engaged in our world, we need to heal our painful patterns and connect to the wholeness that is already there.
Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC): 8 Week Course
With Hattie Bluestone, DPT and Anahita Navab Holden, PhD
Sundays: August 7th-October 2nd
(with the exception of Sunday 8/28)
10 AM-12 PM
La Mesa Park
Price: $400
For registration, please visit www.yogasoup.com
In difficult moments, what would it be like to offer yourself the same kindness, care, and support that you would naturally extend to a friend? Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) is an empirically supported, 8-week program that teaches core principles and practices to cultivate the skill of self-compassion. MSC was developed by Kristin Neff, PhD, and Christopher Germer, PhD, leader in the integration of mindfulness and psychotherapy. The program includes guided meditations, short talks, experiential exercises, group discussion, and take-home practices to integrate self-compassion into daily life. For more information please contact: info@anahitaholdenphd.com.
Deepening the Experience of the Sacred: Mindfully Embracing our World
During the morning of this day-long seminar, Radhule will teach you to deepen the practice of Ordinary and Non-dual Mindfulness, Introducing pointing out instructions, so you can learn to rest in awake awareness. Radhule will also introduce Self-compassion and Compassion-for-others (Tong Len) practices, which will include the care for ourselves and our world.
From 2 to 4 pm, Dave Richo will join us again, so we can together integrate our experience of the Sacred. We will also discuss how Kindness and Compassion can help us hold our personal suffering and how we can live with meaning and purpose in our troubled and breathtakingly beautiful world.
Maintaining our Balance in a Shaky World: Psychological and Spiritual Practices that Foster Inner Peace
In our present world of surprises, we may find it difficult to find a footing of safety and security in ourselves or in society. Violence and disease seem to be the new normal.
In an age of anxiety like this one it is perfectly understandable that we fear the future and perhaps lose trust in the political, psychological, and spiritual sources that were reliable before. Likewise, we may lose our trust in our own inner resources.
In this topsy-turvy world we still have one another. That is our source of hope. Our only challenge is to trust it when all the evidence has become shaky. We can learn to do that, always as beginners and always as enthusiasts.
In this workshop we will have time and space to explore what we fear or trust. We will experience practices of ordinary and non-dual mindfulness that take us to deep awareness.