Staying Human in Turbulent Times: Embodied Compassion for Daily Life

With Melissa Moore

Saturday, May 30, 2026, 9 AM to 5 PM PST

In-Person at Berkeley Shambhala Center, 2288 Fulton St, Suite 203, Berkeley, CA 94704

Cost: FREE (suggested donation is $25)

Karuna Alumni are encouraged to attend and invited to bring a friend

Why is it important to embody compassion?  Especially when we’re triggered, overwhelmed, in conflict, or facing collective uncertainty, embodied compassion is how we train ourselves to come back to the middle, to non-reaction and to an innate clarity of mind – but we have to practice remembering to come home to the heart.

This immersive one-day introduction to Karuna Training invites you into compassion not as an ideal, but as a lived, relational, and somatic practice. Rooted in the contemplative psychology lineage of Chögyam Trungpa and Naropa University, Karuna Training offers practical methods for working directly with emotional energy — not suppressing it, not bypassing it, but transforming it. Through guided meditation, experiential exercises, and relational practices, you will explore how awareness and compassion become embodied capacities you can access in daily life.

Together, we will explore:

• How to evoke and inspire “Basic Sanity” — in yourself and others — even in moments of confusion and rage
  
• How can emotional reactivity be transmuted into wisdom?
  
• The foundations of Compassionate Exchange as a relational meditation
  
• A Glimpse of the  Mandala of the Five Buddha Families as a map of elemental energy, emotional insight, and our innate wisdom
  

This is not therapy. It is not self-improvement. We do not need to be a care provider or in service for this work to be applicable.  It is a radical training in meeting experience as it is — with clarity, dignity, and warmth.

Designed for meditators, therapists, coaches, educators, healthcare professionals, and practitioners seeking deeper integration. This one day program offers a powerful glimpse into the two-year Karuna Training path while standing fully on its own as a meaningful experience.

What to expect:

• Expect to do body awareness, and sit in guided meditation on the floor or in a chair.
• Expect embodied exploration of emotions. 
• Expect a kind-hearted community exchange

In a culture of speed and one-upmanship, Karuna training invites us into presence and connection.

Come discover what compassion feels like in your body — and how it can transform the way you relate to yourself, your work, and the world.

Facilitator

Melissa Moore, Ph.D., is a long-time contemplative practitioner and educator who has spent decades accompanying people through the tender territories of grief, change, and emotional transition. Trained initially as a contemplative psychotherapist at Naropa University, she later completed her doctorate in Psychological Anthropology at CIIS, grounding her work at the intersection of inner life, culture, and human meaning-making.

Melissa co-founded Karuna Training in Europe in 1996 and has guided Karuna Training in North America since 2014. A student of Vajrayana Buddhism since 1979, she brings a gentle, embodied understanding of grieving, ritual, impermanence, and what it means to stay open-hearted in the face of loss.

She has taught contemplative grief practices internationally and is the author of The Diamonds Within Us: Uncovering Brilliant Sanity through Contemplative Psychology. Her teaching style is warm, steady, and rooted in the belief that grief is not something to “get through,” but something sacred that deserves to be held with care.