If we want to help the people around us find safety and well-being in their lives, we need to come from a profound place of safety and well-being in ourselves.
In this nonsectarian workshop, John Makransky draws from the Tibetan Dzogchen meditation tradition — a lineage that holds that our innate capacities for warmth, presence, inner peace, unconditional love, and wisdom are always available within our basic awareness, even when they feel obstructed by habits of self-clinging thought and reaction. Over the course of the weekend, participants will explore meditations that access those underlying capacities, both as a basis for our own inner healing and as a way of becoming a more unconditionally healing presence for others.
Drawing on modern psychology as well as Buddhist practice, the workshop adapts this pattern for people of all backgrounds and faiths who are seeking an accessible way to cultivate unconditional love, compassion, and wisdom in their lives and their caregiving.
The program includes talks that introduce guided meditations, guided meditations, Q&A, periods of silence, and group discussion. A meditation handout will be provided.
Please wear comfortable clothing, chairs will be provided. You may bring cushions and mats if you prefer.
Dates: Saturday, November 21 & Sunday, November 22, 2026
Times: 9:30am–12:30pm and 1:15pm–4:15pm, both days
Location: Town Grove Building on the Lake, 42 Ethan Allen Street, Lakeville, CT 06039
Cost: Free. We ask that you contribute toward the cost of lunch (provided both days) and consider an individual donation for our teacher.
Format: Talks, guided meditations, Q&A, silence, and discussion. A meditation handout will be provided.
Reading (suggested): How Compassion Works: A Step-by-Step Guide to Cultivating Well-Being, Love, and Wisdom by John Makransky and Paul Condon (Shambhala, 2025). A limited number of copies are available at East Mountain House. This book can be purchased / ordered in person or online at Lakeville Books located in Lakeville CT and Great Barrington MA.
RSVP: helpme@eastmountainhouse.org
ABOUT THE TEACHER
John Makransky, PhD, has been a professor of Buddhism and Comparative Theology at Boston College, senior advisor for Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche’s Center of Buddhist Studies in Nepal, a Contemplative Fellow of the Mind and Life Institute, and past president of the Society of Buddhist-Christian Studies. He is the developer of the Sustainable Compassion Training model for accessing innate capacities of love, compassion, and awareness.
John’s scholarly writing focuses on connections between practices of devotion, compassion, and non-dual wisdom in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, on adapting Buddhist practices to meet contemporary minds, and on theoretical issues in interfaith learning. In 2000, he was ordained as a Lama — a meditation teacher of innate compassion and wisdom — within the Nyingma Dzogchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Since then, he has taught meditations of innate compassion and wisdom to modern Buddhists, to people of diverse spiritual traditions, and to people in many kinds of caring roles and professions.
Learn more about his work at sustainablecompassion.org.
