Liberating the Heart and Self

A Monthly Mentoring Program

This mentorship program is based on Mugen’s newest book Liberating the Self, as well as his book Buddha’s Heart.

We will explore what the self is, how it is structured, and how to work with challenging emotions as a vehicle for returning to our source—the Absolute. With repeated engagement, challenging human emotions can be traced back to the Absolute as we contact and abide in the authenticity of the Absolute directly.

Each month we’ll alternate between working personal material as described in Liberating the Self and then opening to the related heart quality, described in Buddha’s Heart, in the following month.

A common misunderstanding about deep Buddhist practice is that we orient exclusively to transcendent, blissful, joyful experiences, engaging in what would amount to a pattern of spiritual bypass whenever we are confronted with difficult or unpleasant emotional states. But happiness and contentedness are actually only occasional by-products of a deep, sustained spiritual practice. They are not the goals. We must have a rigorous devotion to truth, in any form.

The compass for journeying deep into the Absolute is the compass of truth. We must have a rigorous devotion to truth, in any form. To update our self-identity, we each need to learn how to recognize and open to difficult, uncomfortable emotions or patterns of personality. Our identity is constructed, in part, out of both our active likes, dislikes, and preferences, and our historic reactions to negative emotions and behaviors. This means that the rejection or repression of historic emotions shapes our sense of self. For example, if we have difficulty responding to and expressing anger in a healthy, mature manner when life events trigger our anger, we may bury the emotion and its causation deep in our subconscious and feel overwhelmed instead. Although the anger is hidden from our view, it is nonetheless leaking and spilling into our consciousness.

There are several benefits to working directly with challenging emotional responses. First, by revealing our history and familial response pattern, we lessen and release energy and beliefs about these emotions. This released energy supplements the energy we bring to our meditation and spiritual practices. Second, our sense of self is altered by the maturation of our relationship to difficult emotional responses. If I take myself to be someone who cannot naturally express hatred, for example, that is part of my self-definition. As my functional relationship to hatred changes and early memories are witnessed and released, that part of my self-definition changes, too. Literally, I become a different person through this important work. Our sense of self not only updates to more accurately reflect who and what we are today but also opens us to deepening contact with the Absolute, as we release outdated patterns of personality.

― Stephen Snyder, Liberating the Self: Buddhist Practices for an Authentic Life

Reviews

The structure of the monthly mentoring programs offers a continuous path of growth, supporting deeper explorations over time. The sangha has become a circle of kind, familiar hearts, and the teachings are warm and clear.

— Mark Shope, Associate Professor at the NYCU School of Law

Program Includes

• Monthly 4.5-hour group online retreats, with time for questions and feedback
• Ongoing access to retreat recordings and course materials
• Monthly reading assignments and discussion questions (optional)

Schedule

January 17 ~ February 28 ~ March 14
April 4 ~ May 9 ~ June 27
July 25 ~ August 8 ~ September 12
October 31 ~ November 28 ~ December 12

You may also want to subscribe to the calendar for this program.

Investment

$50 monthly ~ Standard, one-on-ones can be booked, as needed
$125 monthly ~ Includes a monthly 25-minute one-on-one*

For students signing up for multiple programs, learn more about bundle pricing.

*One-on-ones cannot be rolled forward to future months. But if you can’t find a time slot in the current month, it is okay to schedule in the following month.

Scholarships are available to support your participation. Please apply at least 7 days in advance.