Sustainable Service Program
Building Resilience by Balancing Empathy
(9:30 am – 12:30 pm)
Taught by Tenzin Chogkyi
Our lives can sometimes feel overwhelming as we face global and national crises, in addition to difficulties in our work and family lives. And sometimes in the face of others’ distress and suffering, we can feel overwhelmed or shut down. How do we generate a compassionate response in the face of others’ suffering and our own? How do we increase our own resilience and ability to meet these challenges?
The answer is balanced empathy, which helps us build a way of relating to others that doesn’t burn us out, but draws forth our best ability to help ourselves and others. In this module we will explore empathy and emotional resilience. You will learn techniques empowering you to relate to yourself and others in healthy and more balanced ways.
Attendees of the morning SSP session have the option to also attend the afternoon Delek/Service Program half-day retreat which begins at 1:30 pm.
How to Attend
Click here to register. We encourage pre-registration to help us plan, but you may also register at the door on the day of the training. Registration is $50.00. On-site Teacher Dana recommended.
Lunch will be on your own with water and coffee supplied at the temple. Parking available in the adjacent parking lot and on the street. (Be mindful of restricted 2-hour parking on some streets – enforcement and ticketing does occur with some frequency.)
For questions, please contact Susan Farrar at info@lionsroardharmacenter.org.
Delek/Service Program Half-day Retreat
Study and Conversations on Service in Daily Life
(1:30 pm – 4:30 pm)
Facilitated by Tenzin Chogkyi
In this quarterly half-day retreat, members of the Delek Program and attendees of the morning SSP Empathy training will share their experiences with service, discuss obstacles and questions in terms of offering service, and work on maintaining and building the skills introduced in the Sustainable Service Program. For questions, please contact Susan Farrar at info@lionsroardharmacenter.org.
About Tenzin Chogkyi
Tenzin Chogkyi (she/her/hers) is a teacher of workshops and programs that bridge the worlds of Buddhist thought, contemplative practice, mental and emotional cultivation, and the latest research in the field of positive psychology. Tenzin first became interested in meditation in the early 1970s and then started practicing Tibetan Buddhism in early 1991 during a year she spent studying in India and Nepal. She completed several long meditation retreats over a six-year period and took monastic ordination with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, practicing as a monastic for nearly 20 years. Since 2006 she has been teaching in Buddhist centers around the world and taught in prisons for 15 years.
She is also a certified teacher of Compassion Cultivation Training and the Cultivating Emotional Balance program. Tenzin is especially interested in bringing the wisdom of Buddhism into modern culture and into alignment with modern cultural values such as racial and gender justice and environmental awareness. She feels strongly that a genuine and meaningful spiritual path includes not only personal transformation, but social and cultural transformation as well.
She is currently based in Santa Cruz, California. You can find her current teaching schedule as well as an archive of podcasts, audio, and video teachings at unlockingtruehappiness.org.