Course Four in the four-year Sustainable Happiness Program with Scott Tusa

Anticipating today’s social neuroscience, positive psychology, and social activism, the Nalanda tradition sees the work of adapting our minds and brains to the challenge of global interdependence as the key variable determining our future health and happiness, individually and collectively. Way ahead of its time, this tradition sees our human predicament of alienation, implicit bias, divisiveness and social stress reactivity as a self-protective overkill in which our self-enclosing stress instincts lock us into reliving childhood trauma and block our development of the wise mind and warm heart that support a proactive life in the world.

This fourth class in the Sustainable Happiness Program teaches the contemplative science of social-emotional healing and change based on the art of transforming the mind (lo-jong), refined by Nalanda masters Chandrakirti and Shantideva and distilled in Chekawa Yeshe Dorje’s beloved Seven Point Mind Training. Integrating all three vehicles of Buddhist wisdom and practice in one format tailored to lay life in an interdependent world, this vital practice teaches an industrial strength version of loving-kindness we think of as social-emotional Kung-fu.

In terms of practice, the seven points cover: using mindfulness and loving kindness to disarm and heal traumatic stress habits; using self-compassion and analytic insight to transform the traumatic self into an expansive self of prosocial engagement; and using the art of giving love and taking care in the face of adversity to embody the spirit of altruism in all our interactions. Finally, the class introduces the art of exchanging self-enclosure for altruism by invoking mentors of altruism to cultivate an altruistic way of being in the world.

This course will be available via live streaming

There are no prerequisites for this class, all are welcome.

Certificate-track students must meet prescribed requirements.

A day-long retreat is scheduled at the end of the course on March 16th which may be taken separately. Find out more about the retreat.

Faculty: Scott Tusa

Dates: Monday evenings. January 28; February 4, 11, 25; March 4, 11

Tuition (in person): $25 per session or $135 for all six classes (includes live streaming).

Registration (in person): Reserve your spot and register via Eventbrite (or pay at the door).

Note: Early registration is highly recommended. Our Nalanda Institute community receives a 10% discount for registering online for the in-person option. Use the code nalanda2019 during checkout.

Location: Tibet House US, 22 West 15th Street (between Fifth and Sixth Avenues)

Tuition (live streaming only): $7 per session or $40 for all six classes.

Registration (live streaming only): Register via Eventbrite

Live streaming details: For those who pre-register, live streaming information (links and passwords) will be included with your confirmation. For those attending and paying in person, who would like to view the video later, be sure to sign up during class to receive the streaming information. For all, links will expire after the course has ended.