Saturday, January 28,
10 AM—4:45 PM,
hearty vegetarian lunch included
Cost: $80.

Workshop may be canceled if registration is low.
Please register for this workshop by Thursday, January 26.

We live our lives within narrow limits. Accepting these limits as “the way we are” we never notice how they channel us into pathways of frustration and disappointment. We can learn to be otherwise.

We can wake up to lives of freedom, power, and ease. The Time, Space, and Knowledge vision offers us a path of transformative knowledge.

Learn to penetrate and transcend limits, to taste freedom in each moment, to engage life as a blossoming vision. The gateway is space, a space opened by the teachings and practices of TSK.

Instructor: Ken McKeon
Please visit our site for more information. NyingmaInstitute.org

UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center is very pleased to announce a recent $5.9 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation to undertake a three-year project: “Expanding the Science and Practice of Gratitude.”

In collaboration with Dr. Robert Emmons from UC Davis, we seek to expand the scientific understanding of gratitude, promote research-based practices in institutions like schools and hospitals, and engage the public in a wide-reaching cultural conversation about the role of gratitude in civil society.

The first component of our project is a $3 million research initiative, focused on understanding the impact of gratitude on health and well-being, developmental science and social relationships. We would appreciate your help in soliciting research proposals to be funded by this grant. Would you be willing to publicize our request for proposals (RFP) in your networks?

The RFP link is here: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/expandinggratitude/rfp/ An overview of the project is here: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/expandinggratitude/
The deadline for the Letter of Intent (LOI) is February 15, 2012 at 5 pm PST and instructions for applicants can be found here:http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/expandinggratitude/rfp/#app-instruct

Feel free to get back to Susan Fassberg with questions. I can be reached at dearsooz@berkeley.edu, office tel is 510-642-2492 THANK YOU!

I want to share with you new videos that introduce some of the work that Deep Democracy Institute is doing in Central Asia. Enjoy!
http://vimeo.com/channels/ddi

DDI is an international leadership institute and thinktank. We’ll be having a conference in Yalta this year. You can take a look at:
http://yalta2012.com/

Our next San Francisco seminar will be February 17-19 on the Relationship Dojo!
http://www.deepdemocracyinstitute.org/singleview/event/deep-democracy-leadership\
-san-francisco.html

I hope to see you!

Warm wishes,
Bill Say
Director DDI San Francisco
bill.say@deepdemocracyinstitute.org

The Female Sexuality Workshop for the Community: Season 2 is happening this spring in San Francisco and Oakland!

FemSexComm provides a safe space for exploration, encourages honest dialogue, facilitates collective learning, and builds solidarity within a community.

Coming off of its successful launch in San Francisco last fall, the community-based FemSexComm workshop will continue to offer two sections this spring at 518 Valencia in the Mission District. We’re also opening up a third section at Tech Liminal in downtown Oakland. The workshops run the weeks of February 6th through May 15th 2012 and meet once each week from 6-9pm on either Monday or Tuesday evening, depending on location.

* * *

If you are interested in this transformative, 15-week workshop we’d love to tell you more:

INFO SESSIONS
(not mandatory but strongly encouraged. Info sessions are the best way to learn about the workshop and apply)

San Francisco Info Sessions
Monday, Jan 23rd and Tuesday, Jan 24th, 6:30-8:30PM
518 Valencia: The Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics

Oakland Info Session
Monday, Jan 23, 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Tech Liminal
268 14th St Oakland, California 94612

You can RSVP on Facebook!

*FemSexComm charges a donation-based workshop fee which helps pay for materials for the 15-week workshop.
We want to be clear that absolutely no one will be turned away for lack of funds.*

FemSexComm
Learn more at:
http://femsexcommsf.wordpress.com/

email us: femsexcomm@gmail.com

Past participants say…

“One thing that was affected was my relationship with my disability. My invisible disability was always a part of my life that was really sheltered from my close friends and often my family. It wasn’t something I ever wanted to discuss or talk about. Early on in FemSexComm I decided that I wanted my time there to be as truthful and open as possible, so I made the decision to reveal information that I consider very confidential to a group of, at that point, strangers. This was a huge step for me and came out of the desire to have an authentic and honest experience with the people in the workshop. In the workshop, I had an accepting community that wasn’t constantly fixating on my invisible disability. They both respected it and allowed me the space to process and also made me feel really loved. It really moved me forward in my process of owning and being fully present with my disability.”

“Because of FemSexComm, I learned to become more assertive about showing my true self in many different types of spaces (not just with friends). I have gained very valuable communication skills and a much greater knowledge or myself, my desires and my ability to express them. These changes have allowed me to become closer to people who I didn’t know well before, and have emboldened me to be brave and honest in my current romantic relationship. I feel much closer to my partner and others in my life because of this workshop.”

“I carry what I have learned from this workshop with me always. It has allowed me to become a better ally, an improved communicator and a more compassionate human being.”

“Being new to the Bay Area, FemSexComm connected me with the people who have now become some of my closest friends here. The community aspect of the workshop has been amazingly powerful for me as it is helping to create serious social change. FemSexComm has rooted abstract and systemic concepts into my personal, lived experience. On a systemic level, it has taught me about how dialogue can be used as a powerful tool in social justice work. On a more personal level, it has drastically transformed how I relate to and respect my body in concrete ways: I am now opting for non- hormonal birth control and using a menstrual cup because I believe these options are healthier for my body.”

* * *

FemSexComm seeks to bring the values of empowerment, diversity, and community to a space outside of the university setting. The workshop explores what it means to take ownership of one’s own body, pleasure, language, and education — utilizing group activities, discussion of analytical readings, self-exploratory assignments, and guest speakers. Peer facilitators foster introspection and encourage participants to develop empowered, informed relationships with themselves and build ally relationships with others. FemSexComm promotes intentionality, agency, informed decision-making, and consent in all areas of life. Themes include pleasure, female sexual health, anatomy and physiology, gender, consent, boundaries, privilege, power, body image, communication, race, class, sexual identity and diversity, orgasms, masturbation, partnered sex, sex work, erotica, kink, and community building.

Morning Meditation
9-9:45 AM
An opportunity to deepen your meditation practice and to introduce your friends or family to the benefits of Nyingma meditation. Each session includes brief meditation instruction followed by silent sitting. You are welcome to attend any Sunday session. No pre-registration or prior experience necessary.
Cost: $5

Kum Nye
10 AM to Noon
Discover the gentle movement exercises of Kum Nye: effective techniques for relaxation, healing, relieving tension, and revitalizing body and mind. Both experienced and beginning students are welcome to attend this drop-in class.
Cost: $15

Tibetan Chanting
5-6 PM
The practice of mantra enables us to restore a natural balance and harmony in our lives. When we chant a mantra, we are free to transcend habitual reflexes. The sound of mantra can still the mind and sense, relax the body, and connect us with natural healing energy. – Tarthang Tulku, Hidden Mind of Freedom.
Every Sunday we invite the public to join us for an hour of Tibetan chanting and meditation.
Free.

Sunday Talks
6-7 PM
A talk on Nyingma teachings is presented by a Nyingma Institute faculty member or visiting scholar.
Free.

Sunday, January 22, 2012:
Ken McKeon on “Entering Appearance.”

“Space is not static, but is instead a serene explosion of expanding creativity, filling all the eons of pasts and futures, without exhausting its openness or its capacity for exhibiting a further wealth of presences.” Tarthang Tulku, Time, Space, and Knowledge: A New Vision of Reality.

All that appears results from this ‘serene explosion’ of space. We can participate in this basic creativity through cultivating an awareness of space and of spaciousness. Time, Space, and Knowledge instructor Ken McKeon will describe how this can be done.

Sunday, January 29, 2012:
Jack van der Meulen on “Opening the Heart to Feeling.”

Tibetan Yoga (Kum Nye) exercises can help to awaken feelings of love and appreciation. The physical postures combined with awareness practices increase the heart’s sensitivity to positive feelings, allowing us to both give and receive affection more freely.

Kum Nye teacher Jack van der Meulen will present exercises that help to open the heart to feeling and will discuss how they can be applied.

“When the basis of action has been transformed, the liberated one acts solely from compassion and wisdom”
Ways of Enlightenment

Transforming Negative Emotions Workshop
January 21, 10 AM-4:45 PM

* Powerful meditations and analysis pacify unwanted emotions without suppressing them.

* First you will learn to balance and clear the mind, leading to insight into how emotions arise.

* Then you will be trained in techniques that transform negative emotional energy.

Cost: $80.
Instructors:
Sylvia Gretchen and Erika Rosenberg.

Sylvia Gretchen, Co-Dean of the Nyingma Institute, has studied and worked with Tibetan Lama Tarthang Tulku since 1969

Erika Rosenberg, Ph.D. is a research psychologist in human emotions who brings an expertise in both Western and Eastern psychology to her teaching at the Nyingma Institute.

Weekend workshops offer fresh insights in a gentle, meditative atmosphere. Unless otherwise noted, Saturday workshops begin at 10 AM and conclude at 4:45 PM. There are two tea and refreshment breaks and a hearty, delicious vegetarian lunch included.

Workshop participants may arrange to stay overnight at the Institute for an additional $40 per night.

Class size is limited so be sure to reserve as soon as possible.

Classes, workshops and retreats risk cancellation if the minimum number of students is not achieved BEFORE the first class session. Please call or email now if you are interested in attending.

Questions? Information? Registration?

* NyingmaInstitute.org
* Call: (510) 809-1000
* Email: Nyingma-Institute@Nyingma.org