The Path of Compassionate Awareness: Exploring Karuna Training
July 12 @ 11:00 am - 1:00 pm MDT
Online | Sundays: July 12, 19, & 26, 2026 | 1:00-3:00 pm EST | Cost: $149
About this Course
Discover the Heart of Contemplative Psychology.
Join us for a three-part journey into the essence of Karuna Training, a transformative path of compassion, awareness, and embodied wisdom. Over three Sundays, you’ll explore how contemplative practices can help you meet life’s joys and challenges with an open heart.
Karuna Training is a two-year certification in Contemplative Psychology, rooted in the pioneering work of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Edward Podvoll, and the legacy of Naropa University. It offers a living discipline of mindfulness in action—developing skillful means in communication, emotional intelligence, and the alchemy of transmuting confusion into wisdom.
This introductory series is appropriate for anyone, not just care providers, but for anyone aspiring to have sane relationships. We will explore the following topics:
- The profound impact of recognizing our own and others’ basic sanity
- The practice of Compassionate Exchange, Karuna’s core method of relational awareness
- The sacred Mandala of the Five Buddha Families, a map of energy and wisdom, will be explored in our final session.
What to Expect:
- Guided heart-oriented meditations to ground and awaken presence
- Breakout exchanges that invite genuine connection and heartfelt dialogue
- Experiential exercises that reveal your innate health and resiliency
- Practical insights for working skillfully with emotions as gateways to wisdom
You Will Come Away With:
- An overview of Contemplative Psychology and Karuna’s unique approach
- A sense of belonging and connection through authentic exchange
- Tools for transforming difficult emotions into sources of clarity and compassion
- A living taste of your own brilliant, compassionate heart
Prerequisites
- Open to all
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.