Karuna Live! Healing through Space Awareness with Janneli Chapin and Melissa Moore

Maitri Space Awareness (MSA) is a contemplative meditation practice introduced to people in the global West by Chögyam Trungpa in the early 70s as a healing practice for those struggling with mental health issues. MSA continues to be at the heart of training Naropa University Contemplative Therapists and has done so for 45 years. MSA is a primary and essential practice at the heart center of Karuna Training.

Maitri Space Awareness draws on an ancient and sacred mandala, the Mandala of the Five Buddha Families. The practice involves taking specific postures that correlate with a primary color of white, blue, yellow, red, and green, each representing the qualities of one of the Buddha Families.  The practice is done in colored rooms (rare and difficult to find); they work equally but more communally when practiced in a group retreat using the five colored glasses. 

MSA is a revelatory practice that unmasks our true nature; we are innately spacious and compassionate.  However, our societal and familial conditioning and the speed and demands of modern life often shroud our natural heart, spirit, and mind. 

Please join Janneli and Melissa, both 40+ years of seasoned MSA practitioners and guides in the practice, in a heartfelt conversation about Maitri Space Awareness practice. We will also guide attendees in a maitri (loving-kindness) meditation and define and explore the power of invoking genuine space in our bodies, hearts, and minds. We hope to see you there! 

On Karuna Training 

In Karuna Training, we find strength in the intrinsic openness, wisdom, and compassion that is available to us as human beings. In the one-hour Karuna Live introductory session, we will have time to reflect and discuss how we can draw on our innate wisdom as a resource in an ongoing way. The program is open to everyone and will include guided meditation, an experience of the Karuna teachings, and a discussion of upcoming Karuna Training offerings. 

The word Karuna means compassion in Sanskrit. Karuna Training brings together a community of people who trust the world’s wisdom to awaken our compassionate hearts. We can learn to resource ourselves and integrate our experiences to live a more empowered life. The world needs all of our compassion, health, and wisdom.

For 28 years, Karuna Training has offered time-tested mindfulness and compassion-based programs in Europe and North America. 

A cohort is forming for the next Karuna Training program starting in 2024. Stay turned for more information!

Janneli Chapin, MA, LPC, is a music therapist and an adjunct faculty member of the Contemplative Psychotherapy and Buddhist Psychology program at Naropa University. She is particularly interested in mentoring students in contemplative meditation practices and how these inform the psychotherapist-counselor who seeks to decolonize multicultural counseling. She has worked in various settings, including community mental health, psychiatric and rehabilitation hospitals, family centers, the VA,  non-profits, and private practice.  Janneli and her family built an off-grid, sustainable earthship in the mountains where people in extreme states of mind were invited into the community to work in greenhouses, tend goats, and make cheese. She has completed a three-year meditation retreat with the Venerable Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche.

Melissa Moore, Ph.D. , has stewarded Karuna Training in North America since 2014 and co-founded Karuna Training in Europe in 1996. Melissa has her MA in Contemplative Psychotherapy from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, and her Ph.D. in Psychological Anthropology from the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Melissa has been a Vajrayana Buddhism and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche student since 1979. She has been involved in community-based research for marginalized populations in California, trained front-line providers in mental health in evidence-based practices, and then researched the outcomes. Melissa has offered Karuna Training in nine countries, and four states in the U.S. Melissa recently published The Diamonds Within Us: Uncovering Brilliant Sanity Through Contemplative Psychology; find out more about the book here: https://thediamondswithinus.org.