If you require a bursary please contact Jude:
Four immeasurable attitudes, also referred to as the “four divine abodes” — love, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity — form the very heart of Buddhist methods for cultivating benevolence and prosocial skills.
Equally appreciated in the Pali and Sanskrit textual traditions of Buddhist teachings, these four attitudes are helpful for establishing attentional balance, transforming our relationships with others, and building healthy intentional communities for bringing change to the world. For Mahayana Buddhists, they form the basis of the awakened altruistic attitude of bodhicitta.
In this 10-week course with Lobsang Tenpa we will do a close reading of Four Immeasurables by Dr. Alan Wallace, supplemented by the material from both Pali and Tibetan sources, including teachings by such luminaries as Longchenpa, Jigme Lingpa, and Dudjom Rinpoche. Gradually training in the immeasurable attitudes, we will discuss our experiences, fine-tune our meditation, practice together, and clarify all the quintessential terms.
While the 10 main sessions will be equally relevant for anyone interested in contemplative practice, an additional, eleventh session (on August 14) will be specifically dedicated to the four immeasurables within the context of the Buddhist worldview. In it, we will discuss the relationship between the four immeasurables and the topics of karma, emptiness, as well as the advanced practices of deity yoga, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen.
Each session will last 2 hours; some will include breakout groups, and all will include detailed explanations, Q&A, journaling prompts, and group practice.
All the registered participants will receive all the recordings (video and audio), along with some extra materials for future exploration.
This course will serve as an excellent foundation for future participation in our retreats on loving kindness, compassion, and bodhicitta, and will supplement your practices of shamatha and vipashyana.
About The Teacher
Venerable Lobsang Tenpa is a Tibetan Buddhist monastic, translator, and Cultivating Emotional Balance instructor.
Born in Siberia, he earned BA and MA degrees in South Asian studies, worked in social media and eventually received monastic ordination in Nepal.
In addition to years of Buddhist studies and translator work, he also trained as a secular ethics and mindfulness instructor in the Netherlands, the UK and the US.
Teaching the practice of the four immeasurables has been Lobsang’s main activity over the last 6 years, supported by his own personal retreats, textual studies, and work as an interpreter.
He is confident these methods present one of the best strategies for tapping into our basic goodness and establishing a profound level of emotional balance.
~ Cultivating Emotional Balance ~
With Ven. Lobsang Tenpa
(See Below)
Ven. Lobsang Tenpa
Cultivating Emotional Balance
(Two Different Courses)
RECORDINGS
If you require a bursary please contact Elizabeth: retreatsccn@gmail.com
About Cultivating Emotional Balance
Video: Cultivating Emotional Balance (CEB): Personal Benefits
The full 42-hour CEB program takes its participants through a deep exploration of their habits pertaining to all the major emotional groups: anger, fear, disgust, joy, sadness and so forth.
In addition, it includes a comprehensive overview of the three main forms of meditation practice:
developing attentional stability, cultivating virtues of the heart and looking deeply into the nature of our experiences.
Studies have shown that taking a full-length CEB strengthens one’s meta-awareness, compassion, empathy, resilience & even the ability to accurately recognize emotions in others.
Cultivating Emotional Balance is a contemplative training program that combines the insights of psychological research with the traditional practices of mind-training.
The aim of the program is to learn to use our emotions — both pleasant and unpleasant — to cultivate greater levels of clarity and psychological wellbeing.
Originally developed by Dr. Paul Ekman, Dr. Alan Wallace and Dr. Eve Ekman – at the request of the Dalai Lama – CEB has grown to become an internationally acclaimed tool for teaching key emotional and contemplative skills for those in service professions and just about anyone who wants to understand and control their emotional landscape better.
This introductory course will consist of four 3-hour long sessions, each including a theoretical component, interactive group activities and periods of silent practice.
Learning to understand the modulations and logic of our fundamental emotional states, we will use a number of psychological and contemplative skills to establish greater levels of inner stability.
Requirements for the students: Please commit to attending the entire course. Anyone is welcome to join.
Suggested reading: Attention Revolution by Dr. Alan Wallace (further readings will be listed during the course).
CCN operates a sliding scale fee to ensure that all who need may access it’s courses.
If you require a full bursary please contact Elizabeth: retreatsccn@gmail.com
A Response To The Dalai Lama's Call To Action
Twenty years ago at the first Mind & Life Symposium discussing Destructive Emotions, the Dalai Lama, put out a call for action – to do more than simply produce a book of the symposium’s discussion on destructive emotions. Paul Ekman, psychologist, picked up the call and, together with other scientists, and Lama Alan Wallace they created a practical response to the Dalai Lama’s call for action. And so Cultivating Emotional Balance was born – a course that has since relieved suffering for many.
View Lama Alan’s discussion of the creation of the CEB course and the benefits of aspiring to Genuine Happiness in the video below.
“The issue, if we want to improve our emotional life, is to introduce awareness into it. There are opportunities in that gap to learn through practice … to become aware of the impulse that has arisen & to choose whether to engage with it or not.”
Paul Ekman on emotions and emotional awarenes
The Ven. Lobsang Tenpa, who is teaching this course, is a long time student of Lama Alan and has translated for many Buddhist teachers, including HH the Dalai Lama. Gratefully he is a constant presence at CCN’s Annual 6 Day Retreat, so most of you will know him.
This short 4 week course can be taken as a ‘stand-alone’ introductory course, or it can be taken as the bridge to the deeper 42 hour training that Tenpa will be offering over 12 weeks September to November.
The Ven. Lobsang Tenpa is a valued and respected member of our sangha. He is a a generous, empathic, and insightful listener and speaker.
May this course be of benefit,
Lama Alan On
The Creation Of The CEB Course:
Paul Ekman On
Emotions And Emotional Awareness:
Website: https://lobsangtenpa.com/
Lobsang Tenpa
Lobsang Tenpa is a certified Cultivating Emotional Balance teacher, meditation instructor and Buddhist translator.
Born in Siberia, he got his BA and MA in South Asian Studies at the diplomatic college in Moscow and went on to become an ordained monastic and a translator in the Tibetan contemplative tradition.
In addition to his Buddhist studies and translator work, Tenpa has been working with secular ethics and secular mindfulness courses for almost a decade.
Further developing his skills while studying in Nepal, the UK and the US, he has taught and led short and long-term retreats in Europe, Asia and North America.
In addition, he has served as the interpreter for such teachers as His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Dr. Alan Wallace, Glen Svensson, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche and many others.