Making a Case for Compassion

with special guest Sara Schairer

This month, we are excited to have Sara Schairer, compassion educator, as our guest.

Sara Schairer is the founder and executive director of Compassion It®, a nonprofit organization and global social movement whose mission is to inspire daily compassionate actions and attitudes. A facilitator of the Compassion Cultivation Training® (CCT) course, Sara leads trainings for audiences of all walks of life, from corporate executives to inmates at correctional facilities.

Sara is a contributing author to the book The Neuroscience of Learning and Development: Enhancing Creativity, Compassion, Critical Thinking and Peace in Education, and writes for Deepak Chopra’s Center for Wellbeing website.

Sara’s new book, A Case for Compassion: What Happens When We Prioritize People and the Planet, is available now.

Unlocking Compassion with Equanimity

with Dr. Joey Weber

Mindfulness meditation has become wildly popular in the last decade or two, and is taught in places as diverse as corporate board rooms, maximum security prisons, and everywhere in between. One of the standard definitions of mindfulness is “awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally,” according Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of the popular program Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction.

Dr. Joey Weber, who was raised in a Buddhist community in northern England, noticed that the focus in popular mindfulness programs was on the attentional training, and not as much emphasis was given to the “non-judgmental” aspect of mindfulness. He was so intrigued by this that he completed a PhD program devoted to the study of equanimity, the non-judgmental stance of mindfulness. His book, Mindfulness is Not Enough: Unlocking Compassion with Equanimity, is based on his research, and he also developed a six-week training program called Equanimity-based Compassionate Action.

Join us for our conversation with Dr. Weber, as we delve into the meaning of equanimity, what this quality can bring to our lives, and how it can inspire our own compassionate action.

Click the link below for information about Joey's next Equanimity-Based Compassionate Action course: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/equanimity-based-compassionate-action-ebca-tickets-463526499237

And for a recent article he wrote on the power of equanimity:

https://www.compassionandwisdom.org/blog/2023/1/15/what-is-equanimity

The Unexpected Gifts of Groundlessness

The Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron says, in relation to contemplative practice, “We are being encouraged to remain open to the present groundless moment, to a direct, unarmored participation with our experience… How many of us feel ready to interrupt our habitual patterns, our almost instinctual ways of getting comfortable?”

Many of us find the experience of groundlessness to be profoundly uncomfortable, and in the last few years we’ve experienced this feeling to an accelerated degree, with the changes brought about by the pandemic, the global financial crisis, political unrest, and so on. How do we remain open and view groundlessness as a gift, see the potential inherent in it, and embrace it? Join Tenzin Chogkyi and Mathew Divaris to explore the theme of groundlessness and how to bring it into the spiritual path.