Sustainable Service

Sustainable Service - 2 Daylong Sessions
November 3 and December 8
(Attendance at both is required)

When we see suffering most of us want to do something about it and many of us are called to the path of service in our communities in answer to this calling. This offering of service can often be a long journey; it is easy to get lost or tired while facing what seems like endless work. Joy and inspiration can give way to frustration and depletion followed quickly by overwhelm that comes when we feel that there’s so much at stake.

We all need support to shore up our commitment to our chosen path, to persevere, and to help sustain our compassionate action and offering of service. The goal of this course is to provide tools to sustain you on your path of compassionate service in the world.

We will explore strategies, including meditations and other practices, that will support you in your work in the world. Though we don’t expect participants to be familiar with either meditation or Nonviolent Communication (NVC), we will use both modalities in our exploration.

In addition, we will use some techniques borrowed from Buddhist philosophy and practice presented in a secular way. No prior Buddhist training or affiliation is expected or required.

Topics that will be covered include:

- Investigation of the question: “What is my intention for helping?”
- Exploration of our core values, and limiting beliefs
- Techniques for self-compassion and self-care
- An investigation of empathy, compassion, “compassion fatigue” and techniques to manage burnout
- Joyous effort and persistence
- An introduction to Nonviolent Communication techniques
- And more...


Who can benefit from this training:

This training will be beneficial for people either currently or considering working in the service fields of social and political activism, education, health and hospice care, social work, environmental justice, criminal justice, and other fields where the burnout rate is high and these strategies are most needed.

About the Instructors:

Venerable Tenzin Chogkyi first became interested in meditation and Buddhism after reading Be Here Now and early translations of Buddhist sutras in the early 1970s, and then in early 1991 she became a student of Tibetan Buddhism. From 1992 to 2000, Venerable Tenzin was director of Vajrapani Institute, co-director the FPMT International Office, and coordinator of FPMT Center Services. She also completed several long meditation retreats over a six-year period.

Venerable Tenzin took novice ordination in 2004 with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. In 2006 she became a touring teacher in the FPMT, and began teaching in prisons on behalf of the Liberation Prison Project.

Venerable Tenzin is authorized by the FPMT to teach at both the foundational and in-depth levels, is also a teacher of Cultivating Emotional Balance (a secular program developed by Alan Wallace and Paul Ekman), and is a Certified Teacher of the Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) program developed at Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education.

Anita Pottekkatt is a candidate to be a certified NVC trainer and a candidate to be a certified NVC access coach, supporting NVC spaces in ensuring access to people of marginalized communities. She teaches Buddhism at Elmwood Jail, and is studying Buddhist chaplaincy. She has studied how contemplative techniques impact emotions at the Clinically Applied Affective Neuroscience lab (UC Davis), and is currently researching emotions at the Greater Good Science Center (UC Berkeley).

Anita has found great solace in approaching life's mysteries through the lenses of Buddhism and non-violence. She is dedicated to supporting people in their chosen path, whether it’s Eastern contemplative practices, Western emotion science, or universal non-violence. She lives with her beloved dogs.