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Karuna Retreat
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SMC Karuna Graduate Training
2022 – 2023
1-year Advanced Karuna Training

The Karuna Graduate Training is a year-long certificate program that offers tools from Karuna Training that participants can integrate into their life and work with others. This includes Compassionate Exchange, Facilitation of Experiential Exercises, Body, Speech and Mind Group Facilitation, Mindfulness Awareness Training, Speaking from the Heart Group Facilitation and Concentrated Self-Care and Self-Compassion. The prerequisite is the 2-year Karuna Basic Training.

The program consists of five seminars: 3 weekends, one 4-day residential program, one residential Deepening Week retreat, a 75-hour practicum (25 hours of direct service), and continuity groups

Graduate Schedule

SMC 2022-2023 

The Karuna Graduate Training is a year-long certificate program which offers tools from Karuna Training that participants can integrate into their life and work with others.
PLACE: 4 Programs online, four in-person retreats to be held at Shambala Mountain centre Colorado.

FACULTY:  Miriam Hall, Terry Jaworski, Sandra Ladley, and Melissa Moore. Additional continuity faculty will also attend and assist at every program.

PREREQUISITES: The prerequisite is the 2-year Karuna Basic Training.

TOTAL TRAINING HOURS: 75 hour practicum (includes 25 hours of direct service) plus continuity groups. The in-person seminars are currently planned as retreats at Shambhala Mountain Center; one as a 4-day residential retreat and the other as a 7 day Deepening Week retreat. The online seminars will include both weekends and ongoing classes.

COST: The program cost is $4,000, $3,400 if paid in full in advance, a $600 discount, or participants can arrange to make payments over time. We are committed to making this financially workable for those who have a strong desire to do the program. Therefore, we have not raised the price since 2017 and some tuition assistance is available. Also, please note that the food and lodging costs for the residential retreats at Shambhala Mountain Center will be paid separately.

Additional costs  Please note that the food and lodging costs for the residential retreats will be paid separately. The costs are estimated at $100- $200 a night for food and lodging including discount, standard, and patron rates.

More Information

In the graduate training we maintain a commitment to personal process. Regional continuity groups meet monthly and every seminar is created for further self-transformation and deeper personal inquiry.
The training is designed to support us in the numerous opportunities we have to live our compassionate exchange and apply Karuna skills in the world whether that be in our relationships, service, or professional life.

Dates & Topics

KTG 1: Mindfulness Awareness and Contemplative Education

May 4th - 7th 2022 Wednesday -Saturday  • Shambala Mountain Center with Six Follow up Weekly 1.5-hour Cohort Online weekend between May 8 and July 1, 2023 DATES TBD

An in-person retreat focused on seating mindfulness-awareness practice and training in how to design and transmit contemplative experiential work. Deepening the practice of meditation instruction and how to seat contemplative experiential work is the take-home of this program. 

We will look deeply into the mirror at our own relationship to practice and how we understand it and communicate about it with others. Participants learn how to teach and seat contemplative experiential work and unlock the container magic of Body, Speech, and Mind group practice. This work is to grow our skills in the dynamics of contemplative facilitation. The end result is an ability to create a contemplative container for experiential work.


Faculty: Terry Jaworski & Miriam Hall

KTG2 The Body, Speech, and Mind of Contemplative Experiential work

June 25th -26th, 2022 and three 1.5 hour classes on July 9th, July 23nd and August 6th, 2022 • Online

This online course aspires to introduce the logic and skills to facilitate the Body, Speech, and Mind group in multiple applications; i.e. the body, speech, and mind of organizations, relationships, and families, and institutions. 

In addition, this course focuses on Introducing methods of creating contemplative experiential exercises; with a ground, path, and fruition framework. Participants will practice creating and facilitating experiential work during this course. The Graduate Practicum project draft proposal is introduced, as well as a form of Contemplative process notes to be utilized in the 75-hour practicum.


Faculty: Sandra Ladley

KTG 3: Compassionate Exchange and Self Care

September 17th-18th, 2022 and three 1.5 hour classes on October 1, 15 and 29, 2022 • Online

This Online Course is specifically dedicated to the art of Self Care when working with others. Each participant will be doing a self-care plan and have the opportunity to implement self-care over a period of time with report-outs to their continuity group and as part of their practicum. We could call this learning to live Karuna in everyday life.

Faculty: Terry Jaworski

KTG4: Maitri Intensification Deepening Week & Speaking from the Heart Group Facilitation

November 13th - 19th, 2022 Saturday -Friday  • Shambala Mountain Center

Participants learn how to facilitate Speaking from the Heart contemplative groups while they are doing intensive Maitri Space Awareness work in a retreat setting. We will also have the opportunity to present a contemplative experiential exercise during the deepening week in small groups. 

The Maitri emphasis this deepening week is the ‘wisdom of no escape’ in that we stay in and intensify one or two colors the entire deepening week. This is the fruition of Maitri practice and where the potential transmission of a buddha family can occur in relationship to the rest of the buddha family mandala.

Faculty Miriam Hall & Sandra Ladley

KTG 5: Maitri Space Awareness in Everyday Life

January 21st - March 4th, 2023; online coursework 9 AM - 12 Noon PT Weekly

This course introduces participants to practicing Maitri Space Awareness at home, and explores the Buddha Family energies in everyday life situations. Participants explore one or two Buddha families for the entire seven weeks. The investigation is to learn the ways in which the Buddha Family chosen is coloring our awareness specific and counter to that respective energy. 

The course offers a trauma-informed approach to building one’s intensity capacity and growing our capacity to stay with emotional pain in a contemplative way. We can in turn teach others to work with their energy in the same way. Additional investigations of emotional habits in one’s family, relationships, and culture are explored. The wisdom of each family is investigated in relation to all the other Buddha Families. The application of compassionate exchange in daily life settings is also reviewed.

Faculty: Melissa Moore, Terry Jaworski

The Practicum: On your own time, working with a Mentor

On–going online monthly cohort meetings with Karuna Mentors will be implemented for additional hours from January through April 2023 - dates and times TBD


The heart of the training is the 75-hour practicum which includes 20 – 25 hours of direct work with others in a practicum of your design and choice. It includes as many as 50 hours preparing for, evaluating, and writing and recording a journal of your practicum along the way, and meeting in regional groups and with your faculty mentor. 

The idea of the practicum is to stretch you, to make it very personal and challenging in a way that you never dared to manifest. The practicum begins with a written plan and approval from your faculty mentor. The point of the practicum is to live your compassion and to apply it very directly in an area of your life that will challenge you deeply in personal growth.

Faculty: All Mentors

KTG 6: Graduation

April 19th - 22nd 2023 ,  Wednesday 7 pm through Saturday 1 pm • Rigden Lodge at Shambhala Mountain Center

Participants give a half hour presentation about their practicum to the cohort. The emphasis is on living Karuna in the world and on the practicums and lessons learned are the main aspects of the presentation at this graduation.

Faculty: Individual Mentors Are Assigned
Completion of the program: It will be acceptable to miss one seminar and receive certification.  

Program Schedule

Participants may miss no more than one seminar and still receive certification.
TitleType of programHours DatesTeachersLocation
KTG1: Mindfulness Awareness and Contemplative EducationIn-person retreat - establishing the community
3 nights and 2.5 days
May 4 - 7, 2022
Wednesday 9:30 AM - 4 PM Online w/ long lunch break
Sunday 9:30 AM to 1 PM
Miriam Hall and Terry JaworskiRigden lodge at SMC
Note KT 1 basic SMC hybrid is being run by Melissa and Sandra
KTG 2: The Body, Speech, and Mind of Contemplative Experiential workOnline
2 weekends + 3 - 1.5 hours follow up



18June 24 - 25, 2022 and three 1.5 hour classes on July 9, July 23, and August 6, 2022
Sandra Ladley
Online
KTG 3: Compassionate Exchange and Self Care Online
2 weekends + 3 - 1.5 hours follow up


18
September 17 - 18, 2022 and three 1.5 hour classes on October 1, 15 and 29, 2022
Terry JaworskiOnline
KTG 4:Deepening Week Intensification Maitri & Speaking from the Heart Group Facilitation
7 days, 6 nights residential retreat, and 8 bi-weekly 2 hour Maitri in everyday life zooms56 at Deepening week

16 hours of Zoom

November 13 - 19 2022
Saturday 3 PM arrival - Friday departure after lunch
weekly 2 hour

Rigden lodge at SMC
Note KT 1 basic SMC hybrid is being run by Melissa and Terry simultaneously at Red Feather.

Online
KTG5: Maitri in Everyday Life

7 courses all Online - 3-hour format of sitting and practice - can be an intensification

21January 21 - March 4, 2023; online Coursework 9 AM - 12 Noon PT Weekly

Saturday Mornings to meet east and west coast times

Melissa MooreOnline
Practicum; on own time75 hours with mentoring

75 hours with mentoring

Includes a minimum of 25 hours of direct service

Faculty: Individual Mentors are AssignedOnline
Online Mentoring Group support

8 groups of 1.5 hours

11TBD for anyone wanting ongoing mentoring in addition to 3 hours of private mentoring with a Karuna Faculty

Karuna Faculty

Online
KTG 6: GraduationSMC Retreat in Rigden Lodge16

April 19 - 22, 2023
(Wed-Sat)
Melissa Moore, Miriam as leads, and all other faculty joining as can

Rigden lodge at SMC
Note KT 8 DW 2 basic SMC hybrid is being run by Sandra and Terry simultaneously at Red Feather.

Continuity Groups Meet 3 hours monthly

30
Total Hours 249
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